Former campaign treasurer may have stolen millions of dollars from SoCal Democratic campaigns
by Brian Leubitz
The Kinde Durkee debacle is widening in scope and depth. If you are on many Democratic email lists, you may have noticed a slew of emails in your inbox either telling you that their bank account was wiped out or asking for money. Yesterday, we learned that Sen. Feinstein, who is looking at reelection for next year, might have lost millions of dollars:
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said her campaign is among those that may have been "wiped out" by a Burbank-based Democratic campaign treasurer who was arrested on federal fraud charges earlier this month.
Kinde Durkee is accused of taking thousands of dollars from the campaigns of several elected officials, including Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove), Rep. Susan A. Davis (D-San Diego) and Assemblyman Jose Solorio (D-Santa Ana). The Los Angeles County Democratic Party reported that more than $200,000 had been taken from its fund. (LA Times)
First, to clarify, Sen. Feinstein doesn't know if she was really "wiped out," but some money was stolen. Part of the problem is that the bank that Durkee used is being rather unhelpful. She kept millions of dollars at the bank, and they are concerned for their own liability. I have heard that they are now attempting to get campaigns to sign a waiver of legal liability to access their accounts.
I'm not giving the bank, or any of the campaigns, any legal advice, but let me explain a legal concept right quick: promises given in exchange for no consideration are called "illusory" and are thus unenforceable. The campaigns should legally have the right to access their accounts. The money in those accounts belongs to them. Giving them the access they are legally empowered to have is not consideration. Heck, even giving them the money to transfer out of the account is not consideration. It is their money, and they should be able to access it.
That being said, the scope of the mess is growing ever wider. It appears that Durkee played fast and loose with campaign funds for years. Much of that time after a San Francisco Chronicle report about a "Californians for Obama" scam that Durkee was a part of.
Of, course, there is one more issue here: California campaigns have given far too much power to external campaign treasurers. They are given sole access to bank accounts, sole authority to write checks, and typically get very little oversight from the campaigns. If we are to learn anything from this mess, we should be sure that campaigns are better managed, we have better oversight systems, and campaigns don't allow individuals too much access. Campaign treasurers are 99.99 honest, but at the same time we need to ensure that campaigns see actual bank statements once in a while, know how much money is in their account, and can handle their business in case of emergency.
As many of you already know, a recent Field Poll survey was released showing Senator Dianne Feinstein slipping in her approval rating. 43% of California voters surveyed approve of Sen. Feinstein, while 39% disapprove-- the highest disapproval rating she's had since first being elected to office in 1992. While these numbers don't necessarily spell trouble for California's senior senator, they do indicate that people are starting to think of a changing of the guards in the Golden State. It most certainly has crossed her mind as well.
There are always politicians and prominent Californians waiting in the wings for political jockeying. With Feinstein reaching 80 years of age soon, more and more elected officials are prepping their resumes and spending extra time coddling donors in preparation for the inevitable.
So it begs the speculative question, who would be ready and able to run a statewide campaign for the United States Senate in the event of Senator Dianne Feinstein's retirement? Who would make a great Senator? Who should make for a great race? Who would be an abysmal choice? In this "fantasy draft" diary, I've narrowed it down to the 13 most probable potential candidates who are at least thinking about a potential run from the Democratic side. All the apparent pros and cons will be listed, and your suggestions/comments are always welcome. And by all means, if you know of any Republicans that would seem likely, include those as well!
Rep. Barbara Lee [D-CA9], proved she has a backbone when in 2001 she stood up against war and became the only member of congress to vote "No" on the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF), and she was oh so right.
Now, Barbara has again taken the lead in trying to stop the insane decision to expand and escalate the war in Afghanistan. Her bill, H.R. 3699 "To prohibit any increase in the number of members of the United States Armed Forces serving in Afghanistan," has been referred to the House Armed Services Committee. Link: http://www.govtrack.us/congres... Cosponsors:
Yvette Clarke [D-NY11] Emanuel Cleaver [D-MO5] Steve Cohen [D-TN9]
John Conyers [D-MI14] Donna Edwards [D-MD4] Keith Ellison [D-MN5]
Bob Filner [D-CA51] Alan Grayson [D-FL8] Raul Grijalva [D-AZ7]
Maurice Hinchey [D-NY22] Michael Honda [D-CA15] Sheila Jackson-Lee [D-TX18] Dennis Kucinich [D-OH10] John Lewis [D-GA5] James McDermott [D-WA7]
James McGovern [D-MA3] Jerrold Nadler [D-NY8] Fortney Stark [D-CA13] Edolphus Towns [D-NY10] Nydia Velázquez [D-NY12]Maxine Waters [D-CA35]
Diane Watson [D-CA33] Lynn Woolsey [D-CA6]
As you can see, MOST of our 53 California representatives have NOT signed onto the bill. No Waxman. No Berman. No Sherman. No Schiff. Just those heroes in bold above are on this short list. CONTACT your representative to ask that they co-sponsor and support this important legislation to take back the war powers as in our constitution. And thank those who have signed on.
Here's the link to the committee: http://www.govtrack.us/congres... The Democratic Chair is Rep. Ike Skelton [D-MO4] with the ranking Republican member Rep. Howard McKeon [R-CA25] (Santa Clarita and east), Rep. Duncan Hunter [R-CA52], and the TWO DEMOCRATS from CA:
Rep. Susan Davis [D-CA53] (San Diego) and Rep. Loretta Sanchez [D-CA47] (Garden Grove-Santa Ana).
Please CONTACT these people on the committee right away and ask that this bill be brought to a vote immediately. With the impending announcement coming from Obama, there is no time to lose.////
In today's Willie Brown column, Willie praises Gavin Newsom for "having the courage" to drop out of the race, he speaks that which the Chronicle's news section, as well as the LA Times, refuses to admit is a possibility: there just might be another candidate on the Democratic side.
But it is absolutely necessary for a politician to have that type of courage if he wants a long career. And make no mistake, Newsom still has a future. He is still a tremendous communicator.
Although Attorney General Jerry Brown comes out the early winner in Newsom's withdrawal, I have to believe there are many Democrats out there who still say, "Can't we find someone with a newer paint job?"
Two names have already popped up: Rep. Jane Harman, D-Venice (Los Angeles County), and Maria Shriver. (SF Chronicle 11/1/09)
For a few weeks these rumors have been going about. There a number of reasons for this, the big one being that there is money sitting out of this race. This is more than just your normal money sitting out of the race for economic reasons, but some typical players that didn't take a side. That could have been that they were leaning away from Brown and weren't sure about how long Newsom could survive. Or that Newsom wasn't able to extract money and just tried for the second best and asked people to hold off on giving money to Brown.
Jerry Brown has a lot of inherent advantages in the race, yet he's certainly not unbeatable. Brown coould yet lose to a well-funded candidate, especially if that well-funded candidate was a minority, a woman, or a combination of the two. Harman carries baggage with the base, and the word on the street is that she may not be able to self-finance her campaigns going forward. Shriver carries some baggage of her own, prinicipally from being married to a rather poor governor.
But those two names are not the only two taking a look at the calculus of the 2010 governor's race. If I were to be putting odds on somebody else getting into the race, I think I'd peg it at slightly better than even money, maybe 60%.
You would think you would want the endorsements before GOTV weekend, but the Judy Chu campaign rolled out a series of endorsements in the past 48 hours. Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez (CA-47) endorsed Dr. Chu yesterday and appeared with her at a GOTV rally. And today, Chu announced endorsements from Congresswoman Diane Watson (CA-33) and the United Farm Workers. Previously UFW co-founder Dolores Huerta had endorsed Chu, but prior to today, the UFW had endorsed Gil Cedillo, so this is a very surprising reversal.
"Judy Chu has always been a champion and friend to farm workers and working class families everywhere. When farm worker Asuncion Valdivia died after toiling in the extreme heat of the Central Valley for hours on end and was denied adequate medical care by his employers, Judy proposed legislation that would ensure such a tragedy would never happen again," said Arturo Rodriguez, UFW President. "Today, California's workers are entitled to mandatory shade, rest, and water breaks thanks to the law Judy helped pass. It is because of her dedication to the health and well-being of our members that the United Farm Workers of America proudly endorse Judy Chu for Congress!"
Considering how late in the game it is, something has to be getting these endorsers off the fence and into Chu's column, especially with respect to the Farm Workers, who appear to have reversed their endorsement. Maybe it's Gil Cedillo's vindictive, ugly campaign.
I don't think it will matter to GOTV efforts, but it's a telling sign when the players start lining up at the very end of the game.
UPDATE by Dante: The endorsement by UFW is, according to Judy Chu Press Secretary Fred Ortega, a dual endorsement. The UFW endorsement of Gil Cedillo was not withdrawn. Said Fred Ortega: "The endorsement is yet another sign of Judy Chu's crossover appeal, and she is very proud to have the endorsement of the organization founded by Cesar Chavez to protect the rights of predominantly Latino workers."
If you're going to announce a run for a Congressional seat, you might want to do it in the district you're running for. From the OC Register:
After years of will-he or won't-he speculation, Assemblyman Van Tran officially launched his quest to unseat Rep. Loretta Sanchez at a press conference this afternoon at a Little Saigon office building in Westminster.
Just one thing: the office is in Congressman Dana Rohrbacher's district, not Sanchez's.
Ouch.
At about 10 a.m. this morning, Tran aide Dave Everett sent an email to Orange County politicos, inviting them to a 2 p.m. press conference at Tran's Little Saigon headquarters at "9191 Bolsa Avenue, Suite #209 Westminster, California 92683."...If you run that address through the Registrar of Voter's online district finder, you'll see that 9191 Bolsa Ave. in Westminster is located in the 46th.
So, did Assemblymember Tran just not know, or did he not care? Neither is good, but the latter is worse. And the latter it is:
Everett said Tran and his aides knew the location was outside the district, but went with it anyway because it's only "like a block out of Garden Grove" and because it's a good, central location for the Vietnamese press.
"What, are we going to quibble with a block?" he asked.
Are we? No. But Sanchez might.
Well played. Yes, it's a cosmetic detail, but it's not exactly the foot you want your campaign getting off on.
The Internet moves at, well, Internet speed, so parts of my House race roundup were already out of date or incomplete by the time I published it. So here's an update on a few races.
• CA-10: John Garamendi announced a significant series of national labor endorsements for the upcoming CA-10 race, despite Mark DeSaulnier having locked up the Contra Costa County Central Labor Committee endorsement and the local Building Trades (which cover almost 100 local unions) and chairing the Senate Labor Committee. They include:
AFSCME: American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
CNA: California Nurses Association
CFT: California Federation of Teachers
UFCW: United Food & Commercial Workers
CSEA: California School Employees Association
Laborers International Union of North America
International Union of Operating Engineers
CWA: Communication Workers of America
Many of those can provide PAC money, resources and support to Garamendi, leveling the playing field in a race where DeSaulnier captured all the early endorsements.
• CA-03: I passed on the rumor about Phil Angelides and CA-03 in my roundup, but local blogger Randy Bayne dismisses that report and notes that Elk Grove City Councilman Gary Davis will likely run, having met with the DCCC and begun the process of putting a team together. I don't agree with Bayne that a contested primary (Dr. Amerish Bera has also announced) would impact negatively on the race. Especially when the candidates have low name ID, a primary can increase their public profile and show them to be a "winner" in front of the district, at the end. Momentum can build. Primaries don't necessarily have to be nasty and debilitating, and I fail to understand why anyone would reject them out of hand.
Incidentally, I never took much stock in the rumor about Angelides, I simply thought it would be a decent line of inquiry, given his name ID, fundraising ability and progressive profile.
On the heels of an election marked by a dismal performance among Asian voters, top Republicans are aggressively recruiting California Assemblyman Van Tran, a Vietnamese-American, to challenge Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) next year.
If elected, Tran would be the second Vietnamese-American in Congress, after Rep. Anh "Joseph" Cao (R-La.), who won his seat in a 2008 election.
Tran has already been feted at the National Republican Congressional Committee's March fundraising dinner as a guest of the committee's recruitment chairman, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), and he was encouraged to run by House Minority Leader John Boehner and Minority Whip Eric Cantor. He also made a trip to Washington after last November's election to meet with officials from the NRCC.
Even Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has assisted in the recruitment process, meeting with Tran and offering support for any potential candidacy. Tran was an outspoken backer of McCain's 2008 presidential campaign and helped him carry Orange County over Mitt Romney in the Republican presidential primary.
What the story fails to mention is that, not only does Tran not have full support among the Vietnamese community in the district, not only does Loretta Sanchez have experience easily defeating Vietnamese challengers, but Tran didn't even do that well in his own Assembly race last year, winning over 55% of the vote against Ken Arnold. If Tran is one of the Republicans' top recruits, they're in even bigger trouble than I thought. Incidentally, Sanchez' voting record has greatly improved over the past couple years.
• CA-50: I should have cited Francine Busby's Firedoglake chat from a couple weeks ago. I don't think I agree with her on this, though:
I've alway said that the Latino voters have to organize register and educate from within their own community. I see more activism and organizing going on than I did before. In fact, I will be attending a meeting on Monday of the reconstituted Latino American Democratic Club in Oceanside. We may have a strong Latina running for a state office who can rally the base. Also, Bilbray is their worst nightmare, so I expect that to motivate them to get out to vote. I reach out to leaders in the community as much as possible to maintain good communications and understanding.
Outreach consists of more than "hopefully they'll self-organize." You need to actually engage the Latino community instead of hoping some other local candidate can do it for you. Not a good sign.
"Well, certainly, I have seen in my own state of California people over and over voting a big majority the whole issue of marijuana and possession of that," Sanchez said this morning on CNN. "So maybe it would be a good pilot program to see how that regulation of marijuana might happen in California since the populous, the majority of Californians believe maybe that's should happen."
Taking a page from a number of those who favor the reform of pot laws, Sanchez likened the issue to the prohibition of alcohol in the early 20th century.
"Well, certainly there is one drug - it's called alcohol - that we prohibited in the United States and had such a problem with as far as underground economy and cartels of that sort that we ended up actually regulating it and taxing it," she said. "And so there has always been this thought that maybe if we do that with drugs, it would lower the profits in it and make some of this go away."
All of this is eminently sensible public policy, and it's good to have someone widely viewed as a moderate selling this to the public. She is absolutely right to compare marijuana to alcohol (even though alcohol tends to be the more dangerous drug) and remind us what we did when the Prohibition policy failed by creating widespread evasion as well as massive crime - we repealed the 18th Amendment and legalized alcohol.
The Hill article notes that Sanchez's subcommittee, Border, Maritime, and Global Counterterrorism, has jurisdiction over the American side of the drug war that has brought parts of northern Mexico into chaos. Drug policy reform advocates have been pointing out for decades that the best way to encourage more stability in Latin America, and to cut down the power of the cartels, is to end America's prohibition policies.
Let's hope this sparks a broader level of political support for marijuana legalization in California. It's been the right move for a long time. It's also now a necessary move if we're to have any hope of starting to fix our budget mess.
Courtesy of your friendly neighborhood open thread people.
• A federal judge today appeared to signal that he will mandate the early release of California inmates in order to control the unconstitutional prison health care disaster. This is happening because of a total failure of leadership from the top down over 30 years on prison policy, so they have no right whatsoever to object, but early release is not the final answer, only a temporary stopgap. If sentencing is unchanged, if the root causes are not addressed, we'll be returning to this issue again and again. It's also unclear if terminally ill prisoners would be the ones released, which would make no sense since they would merely become a burden on the strapped regular health care system.
• Lawyers in Santa Monica for Roman Polanski are seeking a dismissal of his notorious underage sex charge which has caused him to be in exile in Paris for over 30 years. They're basing their motion on revelations of prosecutorial misconduct in the HBO movie "Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired."
• I'm a fan of Citizens for Repsonsibility and Ethics in Washington, but lumping in a $145 charge from Rep. Loretta Sanchez for culturally appropriate Vietnamese attire during meetings in her Vietnamese-heavy district with Sarah Palin's $150,000 clothing charge during the fall election is borderline insane.
• In other campaign finance news, MapLight.org, a Berkeley based watchdog group, is suing the state for electronic voting records for the legislators. That would be very, very helpful for us bloggers. Combining those with MapLight's campaign finance tools would be even more powerful. Here's their release.
Kos has an important post on 2010 marking a pivot for the grassroots and netroots from trying to take back the federal government from Republicans to reforming our Party and holding Democrats accountable.
If your local congresscritter is one of the bad apples, start organizing locally. Plug into existing networks or start your own. Begin looking for primary challengers. Do the groundwork. Don't expect help from the local party establishment, they'll close ranks. So tap into alternate infrastructures. Find allies in the progressive movement. If your local shitty Democrat is anti-union, approach the unions. They'd love to send this kind of message. If the Democrat is anti-choice, work with the women's groups. If the Democrat is anti-environment ... you get the idea. If you have access to professional networks and money, start organizing those.
Of course, this takes more than just bitching about your frustrations on a blog, damning a whole party for the actions of a minority more scared of Mr. 28% than of protecting the Constitution they swore to protect. This takes hard work. But now is the time to start.
Indeed. The activists that meet campaigning this fall will form the core of next cycle's primary efforts. Kos suggests looking at The Capitulation Caucus with emphasis on those who are also Blue Dogs. In California, that means:
Joe Baca, Dennis Cardoza, Jim Costa, Jane Harman, and Adam Schiff
Kos also praises Loretta Sanchez as one of only four Blue Dogs who didn't cave on defending the Constitution from retroactive immunity. And remember, Ellen Tauscher was a member of the Blue Dogs until she saw the successful primarying of Joe Lieberman and occupies a district designed for a challenge from the left (and west).
That's right. Gary, Charlotte and I went for our first precinct walk this weekend together in Aliso Viejo, California. Oh man, not a good weekend to start, it was very hot and we waited until early evening to grab walking shoes and knock on doors in our very own neighborhood. Why not start where we live? Our community is in the heart of the 33rd State Senate district.
This will be our cheapest and best way to get the word out about Gary's campaign and for now we are knocking on all the doors. Republicans, Declined to States and Democrats. We've found Republicans to be very receptive to meeting the candidate, especially when it's quite doubtful that the Republican candidate will do any walking at all.
And this is the best lesson we learned, talking to people is the best way to get them to vote for you. And we even found some lovely Democratic neighbors who want to donate and volunteer. What more can a grassroots campaign ask for?
Woohoo! Jerry did it! Jerry McNerney has managed to become the most un-progressive Democrat of the entire California congressional delegation. For those keeping score at home, Jerry's 82.45 was about a half point lower than the next CA Dem, Jim Costa, that progressive stalwart, at 82.97. And for all the talk of Harman changing her ways, she's still worse than even Joe Baca, almost 7 points worse from a very safe Dem seat.
For all of you CA-45 fans, "moderate" Mary Bono came in with a stellar 4.42 Chips are Down score. So, for all the bluster of the SCHIP vote, she's still dancing the same jig as the rest of her party.
On thing must be said, the Speaker has done an excellent job at preserving unity amongst the caucus. Whether that means she's being too incremental and/or ineffective, or just laying down the law is the big question. The reason her approval rating, and the Congress in general, is down has a whole lot to do with the fact that little has changed on the Iraq front. So, would it be better to have a speaker who is more willing to take risks? Perhaps, but the impediment of the president always lingers over her head, veto pen in hand. So, whether the unity is really there, is an open question. Full data over the flip.
(I was working on a similar post, but I'll still post my own, with all CA data and some other miscellany. - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
The problem with most scorecards is that they are written by lobbyists concerned with always getting the votes of potential supporters. Thus, there is an equal weighting while in the real world not all votes are equal. In fact, regardless of everything else, some votes are dealbreakers and when they show up on scorecards as one of 12 votes or something, it looks silly. However, Progressive Punch has a new "when the chips are down" scorecard. After the flip is the ratings of CA's congressional delegation, in descending order.
I'm guessing that at tonight's Calitics' Actblue Celebrations there will be a lot of discussion about the votes to condemn MoveOn. The CA delegation split 50-50 in the senate and 16 yea and 17 nay in the house -- wedged successfully by the GOP in half. After the flip is the scorecard.
One of the things that Republicans learned to do really well in the early 90s was branding. In the modern era of marketing, the impact is really hard to overemphasize. People are increasingly relying on branding information where they were once using real data. That stinks, but it's the way the marketing game is played these days. So, we either play it or get steamrolled by it. I bring this up to point out our own failings within the state to build the "Democratic" Brand. So, I poked around a few Congressional (electoral websites) for some good practices and some bad practices.
As usual, it would be better to quote this Digby post verbatim, but let me just give you the relevant section from the article in question:
(Loretta) Sanchez, Orange County's only Democratic member of Congress, voted in 2002 against giving President Bush authorization to invade Iraq. More recently she voted to begin pulling troops out within 90 days.
Tuesday night Sanchez said she could not support the protesters (who want to cut funding for the war) because the $145 billion in Iraq war funding was in the same bill that would provide money to build the C-17 aircraft in California.
"I never voted for this war," she said. But "I'm not going to vote against $2.1 billion for C-17 production, which is in California. That is just not going to happen."
Sanchez has been consistently against the war, and she cannot be fully blamed for protecting her constituents. But she's constrained by the fact that a major military contractor in her district has a gun to her head. Particularly in California, but all over the country really, the massing of the war machine has a definite impact on policy. They put their factories in all these different districts, so that shuttering an obsolete weapons system will be met with enormous resistance. This ensures that you can never decrease military spending or even keep it the same. And eventually, all these systems have to be justified. Through war.
This is approximately why the nightly news has all of these ads for Lockheed Martin and Boeing on them. I can't buy a 757, but Boeing can keep that news network in line by threatening to drop their ads if they stray from the party line.
Here's Digby:
It's just another way that big money distorts our politics. Sanchez's statement makes it quite clear that the "power of the purse" is not about stopping anything. It's about funding all kinds of things that have been set up over many years to keep politicians like Sanchez in line. She really does have to answer to her constituents --- many of whom make their living off the military industrial complex dime. You can't blame her.
I don't even think public financing will stop this. You're talking about thousands of constituents' jobs. And California embodies this problem as much as any state in the union. It's something we really have to think about. How do we, after 60 years of massive military buildup, put this genie back in the bottle?
(This isn't limited to defense, by the way, John Dingell's attempt to upend CAFE standard legislation preferred by the Speaker comes from him protecting his constituents, just as resistance to gas taxes comes from legislators protecting theirs.)
What do you think of when you think "Fourth of July"? The American flag, perhaps? Fireworks? Independence? Apple pie? Ice cream? The beach? A parade? Well, what if I told you that you can experience all of that AND MORE on Wednesday?!
Yes, my friends, this Wednesday is July 4th. And yes, this means it's time for the Huntington Beach Fourth of July Parade, THE LARGEST INDEPENDENCE DAY PARADE WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER! And guess what? The Democratic Party of Orange County will once again have a fantastic float in the parade! Oh yes, and our fabulous Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez will be marching with us! Oh yes, and we need more people to march with us in the parade. Come on now, don't YOU want to be a part of the parade?
So would YOU like to be a part of this world-famous All-American celebration? Follow me after the flip for more...
Well, we have a new problem. One of our own Senators, Dianne Feinstein, is undecided on adding something like the Davis Amendment to the Senate's Defense Authorization Bill. I guess she's not sure yet whether California state environmental law is important enough to be enforced. Follow me after the flip to find out what YOU can do to ensure that Senator Feinstein votes to enforce the law, protect our coast, and respect the integrity of our parks...
It's over! It's over! It's finally over! The Liberal OC has the last word on the crazy rumor about the Nancy Pelosi fundraiser, and the Republican spinners at OC Blog have clearly failed in their attempt to create civil unrest among Orange County Democrats. Horray, the non-scandal has died! ; )
So what "scandals" are happening in your neck of the woods? What non-issues are the Republicans trying to stir up in your area? And is Bill O'Reilly crazy, or is he just talking nonsense? Go ahead. Make my day. Fire away! : )
