Links:
* Much ado about gifts in Los Angeles. DA Steve Cooley is investigating Mayor Villaraigosa and the state is going to change the rules, but meanwhile Cooley himself is accepting a slew of gifts from “close personal friends.” Friends that, generally, have some connection to the County of LA. Funny that. (Note: Brian works for the Kamala Harris campaign.)
* Meg Whitman sent out a mailer with a cheap (and factually wrong) attack against Jerry Brown. Trying to tie him to Bell, Whitman played fun with numbers. The result was, funny enough, some very dark mail. The truth tells a different story. Brown presided over a city that was better on the day that he left office than when he entered. Meanwhile, Jerry Brown investigated the actual City of Bell.
* San Bernardino County is going to face some voting rights act troubles unless they work to improve the number of minorities that are eligible to vote that actually register.
* A judged tweaked the ballot language for Prop 22.
* Meg Whitman’s (non eMeg) political donors have a strong tilt towards developers.
They’re kind of intimidating to fill out, full of all kinds of potential oversight. Did you go to dinner with friends and have someone else pick up the tab? You have to remember that and declare it. Did someone invite you to a ball game? You have to remember and declare it. Obviously if you’re in office, you get used to logging that stuff, but for someone filing to run it’s a big memory hole. Fortunately, gifts from relatives are exempt from disclosure.
I think the scariest part of the whole form is that you have to declare wedding gifts if you got married in the past year. The form contains helpful suggestions for figuring out the value of your gifts so you can list them. So, avoid getting married during a time when you’re covered by the form.