It’s not a race that has been talked about much. However, both the GOP and the Dems have competitive primaries. It’s true, check out how much money the 2 Dems, Joe Dunn and John Chiang, have raised. The 2 GOP candidates, Strickland and Maldanado, should also be up there. However, for some reason, Strickland isn’t up. Maldanado, however, is trailing both Dems in fundraising…by a lot.
But the news today is from the GOP primary race, and it’s funny! From the SacBee’s Buzz:
In a heated GOP primary battle for state controller, former Assemblyman Tony Strickland last week claimed his opponent, state Sen. Abel Maldonado, can’t keep track of his own money.
Strickland’s staff plugged Maldonado’s name into the controller’s database of unclaimed private property and found Maldonado has about $2,000 he hasn’t collected. Or, as Strickland put it in a news release, Maldonado is on “the list of people who have carelessly lost track of their money.”
On the contrary, said Maldonado’s staff. They said the senator has known “for over a year” that he has unclaimed property. …Maldonado has been teaching people how to find their property in the controller’s database and has left his own money in the pool so he can type in his name and show them how it comes up, Kise said.(SacBee 4/17/06)
I suppose if I was really interested in this race I could follow this up by trying to find an instance of Maldanado actually “teaching” people. Personally though, even if I were a Republican, I wouldn’t be that concerned about this. Mostly because the Controller’s job isn’t to actually do the accounting work himself, but rather to set priorities for the staff (some of whom, you would hope, are competent CPAs). But if the Republicans really want to bash each other over this, I’m all for it. I’m all for negative attacks amongst GOP candidates, not so supportive when it’s Dems attacking Dems…got that Angelides and Westly?
That being said, there is a lot for the GOP candidates to fight about. Strickland has been paying himself, and his wife (who took his seat after term limits struck). (Thanks CarlsbadDem and SDPolitics…see comment below)
Over a little more than five years, Tony Strickland and his wife, Audra, who replaced him as a member of the state Assembly, paid more than $138,000 raised by their supporters to businesses owned by them and a staffer living in their Moorpark home. An additional $20,000 in campaign money was deposited into a nonprofit organization run by Tony Strickland.
The Ventura County couple say they did nothing improper and that investigators have cleared them of wrongdoing.
Strickland, who as controller would manage and audit the state’s finances, produced a June 2004 letter from Ventura County prosecutors saying they looked at the transfers and found no evidence of criminal activity. The district attorney’s office review was set in motion by a citizen complaint.
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The Stricklands’ political opponents say a dependence on donors not only to win the campaign, but also to increase their income, is a clear conflict of interest, even if not illegal.
“How could people be so arrogant to blatantly transfer money like this?” asked Jere Robings, a Republican activist from Thousand Oaks. “It is obvious they are trying to circumvent the law,” he said.(LA Times 4/13/06)
And perhaps that’s what those GOP candidates should be concerned about, not some $2,000 left unclaimed.
