That last action of Migden's brought a countersuit by the FPPC for $9 million in damages, which issued this statement, five days ago accusing her of a consistent and deliberate failure to follow California campaign laws:
"The Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), the independent state agency charged with investigating violations of campaign finance laws, today filed a counterclaim in Sacramento federal court against Sen. Carole Migden seeking more than $9 million in damages for her consistent and deliberate failure to follow California's campaign laws.
"The commission's filings indicated that Migden's actions hid the true nature of her campaign accounts from state regulators, potential opponents, the media and the public generally. She failed to report a number of large transactions entirely, while reporting other large transactions which simply never occurred.
"For years, Senator Migden has been deceiving the voters of California by filing inaccurate campaign statements, fabricating the elimination of committees and concealing campaign funds," said FPPC Chairman Ross Johnson. "The sophisticated and pervasive pattern of deception by her various controlled committees has been ongoing for more than five years."
"Earlier this month, Migden was fined $350,000 by the commission and admitted to 89 violations of the Political Reform Act. During the months-long investigation that resulted in that record fine, the enforcement division also uncovered multiple illegal transfers of approximately $1 million of surplus campaign funds that occurred over several years and were funneled through multiple committee accounts controlled by the senator. Additionally, the investigation found the filing of untrue campaign statements and a pattern of concealment through consistent misreporting of campaign information.
"The commission maintains that nearly $1 million in Migden's 2000 Assembly re-election committee became surplus by operation of law when she left the lower house in December of 2002 and are not legally available for her to use in her current Senate re-election campaign. The surplus funds law has been on the books for nearly 30 years; however, Migden sued the FPPC arguing she should be allowed to use $647,000 of those funds that remain.
"Nothing absolves Senator Migden from her legal requirements to accurately report all of her transactions," Johnson concluded.
"The commission's counterclaim and the full list of violations can be found on the FPPC website at: http://www.fppc.ca.gov/index.html?ID=507"
It would be ironic if this convention on the same morning as it approves a platform supporting "clean money" and campaign contribution reform, endorses Migden. This move could make her eligible for funding from the Democratic Party as such in the primary race, which she sorely needs in light of her problems with the state's political watchdog agency. Propping her up and keeping her in the race with this funding can only help the chances of the more moderate Joe Nation who is running for the seat. This has become a two person race-and she is not one of them.
Under California Democratic Party rules, (Article 8, Section 2(d)(4)), the convention floor must first consider whether to ratify endorsing caucus decisions before voting on those that have not been challenged on the consent calendar. The rules provide for the presentation of arguments for an against ratification.
If 50% of the convention fails to support ratification, the decision of the endorsement caucus is considered "vacated." A substitute candidate can be endorsed, but needs a 75% convention vote.
While a 75% vote for Leno is out of the question, it will be interesting to see if he can overturn the caucus vote stacked against him by Senators rallying around one of their own.
