The Desert Sun and its online edition, mydesert.com, detailed the California Fair Political Practices Commission complaint against the Perez campaign for the 80th Assembly District for unfair practices during the California Democratic Party convention in San Jose. For the entire article, refer to FPPC Complaint Alleges Candidate Skirting Campaign Advertising Disclosure.
The California Fair Political Practices Commission confirmed today that someone filed a complaint against 80th Assembly District Democratic candidate Manuel Perez accusing him of failing to disclose who paid for his campaign advertising.
The complaint was filed against the Coachella School Board trustee April 4.
“It’s obvious some people want to manipulate rules and don’t want to follow them,” said Greg Rodriguez, who filed the complaint. “I think everybody needs to be scrutinized by the rules they follow.”
More below the flip…
Rodriguez is a Greg Pettis for 80th Assembly District supporter, a candidate for the Palm Springs Unified School District board, and a Sen. Hillary Clinton delegate to the Democratic National Convention in Denver later this summer. Pettis, a Cathedral City Councilman and former-Mayor Pro-tem, is the leading candidate and leading fundraiser of the four Democratic contenders for the 80th AD.
According to The Desert Sun,
Perez says he’s complied with the law.
“It’s one thing or another,” he said. “We’ve got more important things to do like walk the streets and talk to voters.”
Apparently one of the more important things that the Perez campaign has to do is voter intimidation in the Coachella Valley. Perez’ Campaign Director, Amalia Deaztlan, was reported to intimidate one of Pettis’ Latino supporters and endorsers at the Democrats of the Desert Annual Banquet on Saturday, April 5, 2008, harshly pinching him in a manner usually applied by Latino adults to recalcitrant children, telling him after he refused to switch his allegiance from Pettis to Perez, “You are no longer one of us!” In addition, Perez supporters have attempted to intimidate Pettis bloggers and diarists with threats and accusations.
Created with a ballot initiative in 1974, The Fair Political Practices Commission was created in a 1974 ballot initiative to investigate campaign violations of the Political Reform Act and imposes administrative penalties.
The FPPC will notify Rodriguez in writing by Friday whether the department will investigate or not, said Roman Porter, a department spokesman. Porter would not speculate on the merits of the complaint.
“One advantage of having a formal complaint signed under penalty of perjury is to reduce frivolous complaints,” he said.
State law requires disclosure on campaign advertising when advocating for or against a candidate or ballot measure.
Perez supporters created and distributed fliers advertising the Perez candidacy at the CDP convention in order to attempt to revoke the party endorsement of Pettis for the 80th AD which he obtained with over 70% of the Democratic Club votes at the Moreno Valley confab. Perez supporters created the advertisements without any FPPC-required denotations as required for the mass production of campaign materials. Perez supporters to date have not reported exactly how many fliers were created for distribution. Under FPPC regulations, mass-produced advertisements are often regulated when created in numbers of 200 or greater.