Posted on 03/07/2003 12:51:39 PM PST by Saundra Duffy
Dean Gardner, conservative Republican & Navy Vet, "lost" this Assembly race by 265 votes! The investigation of voter fraud is on-going. Meanwhile, it turns out that the CA GOP made a point of screwing Dean Gardner. I have been freepin' the "winner" Nicole Parra every chance I get. And to add insult to injury, Nicole Parra has been appointed to Chair and very important Veterans Affairs Committee. I AM SOOOO PISSED, you have no idea!! Here's the article.
Kern GOP kept cash out of local race
By VIC POLLARD, Californian Sacramento Bureau e-mail: vpollard@bakersfield.com
Friday March 07, 2003, 12:12:32 PM
Editor's note: This story was revised March 7, 2003, to correct the name of the organization Robert Stern is president of.
With a local GOP Assembly candidate desperate for money in the days before the Nov. 5 election, the Kern County Republican Central Committee was funneling more than $135,000 in stealth contributions to three legislative candidates in other parts of the state.
And experts say Kern's GOP group may have been violating campaign finance laws in the way it handled the money.
A county Republican official disputed that, saying he does not believe the law was violated.
But Republican businessman Dean Gardner of Bakersfield, who believes he would have won the 30th Assembly district race if he had had just $10,000 more to spend, was upset at news about the controversial funding scheme.
"It is distressing to find that this kind of money came into Kern County and none of it went to the Gardner campaign," he said.
The county committee did give Gardner $1,000, but sent the bulk of the cash outside the county.
Gardner was outspent by as much as 10-to-1 by Democrat Nicole Parra, who eked out a victory by fewer than 300 votes.
The money the local GOP gave out was part of nearly $1 million donated by Woodland Hills-based 21st Century Insurance Group that was channeled by Republican Party officials to candidates in key races in a manner that hid the source of the funds.
The company donated the money one day after the deadline for reporting contributions before the election. Thus it was able to wait until Jan. 31 to report them.
While the party organizations reported making donations to the candidates before the election, there was no indication of the actual source of the money. Donations to candidates in the weeks before an election must be reported in 24 hours, but major donations to political committees do not have to be reported immediately.
That fact allowed the GOP to receive the last-minute infusion of cash and quickly distribute it without having to report it came from the insurance company.
On Oct. 22, 21st Century donated a total of $950,000 to the state Republican Party and more than a dozen other party groups, mostly county central committees in rural areas like Kern. Had it made the contributions one day earlier, the company would have had to file a report showing the source of the money before the election.
The Kern committee got $150,000, second only to the California Republican Party's $200,000.
Like most of the other groups, the Kern GOP made major contributions to races "targeted" by party leaders as the most important in the state.
It paid campaign expenses totalling nearly $67,000 for Jeff Denham, who defeated former Democratic Assemblyman Rusty Areias in a Modesto-area Senate race. It made a cash contribution of $38,000 to Shirley Horton, who won an Assembly seat in Chula Vista, and paid campaign expenses of nearly $31,000 for Guy Houston, the winner in a race in the Livermore area.
The other committees made major contributions to those and a handful of other key races around the state, all probably playing a role in the GOP's gain of two seats in the Assembly and one in the state Senate in the election.
A 21st Century spokeswoman, Fiona Hutton, said GOP legislative leaders requested donations from the company.
The firm's support for Republicans is no surprise -- it has made no secret of the fact that it is still angry over the passage of Democratic legislation that gave victims of the 1994 Northridge earthquake an additional year to file damage claims.
State Republican Party spokesman Rob Stutzman made no apologies for the stealth nature of the contributions, saying officials wanted to hide the contributions from Democrats, who might have responded in kind.
"A political party exists to win elections, and it will seek every advantage it can under the law," Stutzman said.
But Democrats say the GOP may not have stayed within the law, particularly the Kern County committee.
Under Proposition 34, the voter-approved campaign finance law, donors giving to a political committee can earmark no more than $25,000 for donations directly to campaigns. The rest of the donor's money must be used only for general party expenses.
Tony Miller, a former acting Secretary of State and campaign reform activist who examined the GOP reports, said they showed the Kern committee made nearly $137,000 in last-minute campaign donations.
It reported "income" of about $192,000 from contributors after the Oct. 21 deadline for pre-election reports.
Without the $150,000 from 21st Century, the local committee had just about $42,000 available from other sources. It could legally use $25,000 of the insurance company money. That, combined with the $42,000 made about $67,000 available for direct contributions.
But that is well short of the $137,000 it gave away.
"If you look at the reports filed," Miller said, "the committee didn't have enough cash to make the contributions it made without dipping into that money from 21st Century."
Miller and other critics said the campaign contribution scheme raised questions about whether it violated money-laundering provisions of Proposition 34 and whether 21st Century or GOP officials were guilty of illegally "earmarking" contributions beyond the limit.
"It seems to me that they came as close to the line as you can," said Robert Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies watchdog group. "I'm sure there are potential violations."
The campaign law is enforced by the state Fair Political Practices Commission, but officials there would not comment on whether the agency would look into the matter. That is not unusual -- the commission's staff rarely, if ever, comments on pending or potential investigations.
Only one top Kern GOP official, Central Committee Treasurer Matthew Brady, could be reached for comment Thursday.
Others, including farmer Charles Mitchell, who was the central committee chairman last year, Assemblyman Kevin McCarthy, and political consultant Mark Abernathy did not respond to requests for comment.
Brady said the decisions to accept the 21st Century money and make the contributions were made by the central committee's executive committee, which included him, Mitchell and a few others.
But he said it was also done in consultation with Abernathy, McCarthy and others.
He insisted no one from the state party or anywhere else directed the committee to make donations to certain candidates, which would have been illegal, experts say.
"We were looking at races, and the state party puts out a list of races they are concentrating on," he said. "You know these things."
He said he and party officials did "the best we could" in working under the campaign law that went into effect for the first time last year.
"But if somebody wants to come and take another look at it, we'll work with them," he said.
He said he feels "terrible" about the fact that little of the money went to Gardner, whom he considers a friend.
"I wish Dean Gardner had been in a targeted race," he said.
Gardner blamed Assembly Republican Leader Dave Cox more than the Kern central committee for his shutout from party money. Cox played a major strategic role in last year's Assembly races.
"He just doesn't like me," Gardner said. "I'm a Republican but I'm an independent. ... He wants people around him who will do what he says."
Think recall gray davis :-)
Unconscionable!
Probably - not to mention Bill Thomas!
Good point. LOL! Sorry for you poor lost souls down there in LA-LA land. Thanks, you made me feel a little better. LOL!
I believe you're talking about the 1978 contest. Udall's profile after he ran for President in 1976 hurt him badly locally when they realized he was a fairly solid leftist, and his margins started shrinking dramatically. State legislator Tom Richey challenged him after Udall's margin was poor against a withdrawn candidate in 1976 (who still got 40%). The 2nd in the late '70s was trending GOP then. Richey was not the choice of the local GOP and ran an insurgent campaign (though outspent 2-to-1 by Udall), and held Udall to his closest race ever, 53-45% (with only a switch of 4,456 votes, Richey would've prevailed). Richey might've pulled it out had he not ran ads saying that Udall specifically referred to himself as a Socialist, which was charged as misleading. The GOP nominated someone else that had strong party support in 1980, but Udall had time to reconnect with his constituents and pulled back up to a 58-40% win (even as Reagan won the district) and never had difficulty again (especially after he was given a more Democrat-leaning district in 1982) until Parkinson's forced his retirement in 1991.
Offer an amendment to the GOP by-laws that would require a vote of PCO's concerning campaign funds dispersal scheme. We have County PCO's vote how we spend our meager candidate funds during the election cycles. Helps to stop the dirty politics. It's good for workers morale too.
I'm constantly being invited to central committe meetings but you can imagine my hesitance based on these horror stories.
Ah, OK. Yes. Gutterson dropped out a few weeks before the election for unclear reasons. I imagine had we won the seat, though, it eventually would've gone 'Rat by the '80s with the increasing Latino presence (now the dreadful Ed Pastor sits in it, albeit in a much differently-configured seat).
Gee, that sounds familiar. Here in Nashville we even have none other than former CA Lieutenant-Governor Mike Curb (the last Republican elected to that office way back in '78, who beat the horrid Merv Dymally, now back in the Assembly but senile as hell), but he doesn't even bother to do anything about the moribund party here and the other fundraisers/bigwigs for the GOP just bring out the kneepads to set beside our local 'RAT officeholders and assume the position. Disgraceful.
I firmly believe the Democrats and the Republicans have been holding hands during this administrations term, because of the number of ex-Clinton bureaucrats currently in the Bush administration. The Bush/Republican immigration open border policy is another firm indicater.
Nicole's father is quoted "Those communities that have a large number of Latinos will now get their fair share if we get a good counting," said Pete Parra, Kern County 5th District supervisor.
Is it any wonder GOP'ers can do little other that raise the issue of 300 illegal votes with little follow-through? Maybe confronting the issue at its roots would help.
I meant Freepers not conservatives. You did not get flagged to the threads because you do not live in Sacramento area. I used my NorCal Chapter list. Check out the thread that Saundra has linked above. It should be one that would make this clear. If not, I link to others.
A disgrace! No wonder the state was so easily taken over by pro abortion zealots - with the help of so-called Republicans. This just stinks to High Heaven.
B.S.!! I think you can be thrown off a Central Committee for endorsing democraps. Nothing is going to change unless we start demanding accountability. God help us. For victory & freedom!!!
PRAY!!!!
Maybe that's why the NIH recently shut down discussion of the abortion-breast cancer link. They're in bed with the democrat abortion industry.
Add Trice Harvey and the Kern County Central Committee leadership. There's plenty of blame to go around.
Farmfriend, who is a dear friend, was just trying to say that yours truly has been going after Nicole Parra pretty much solo. As for the media, they have enjoyed kissing Parra butt up one side and down the other. I doubt now they will expose the voter fraud. You're right about them joyfully exposing Republican dirt, though. Anyhoo, I'm gonna keep pounding away at Nicole Parra until she RESIGNS or is REMOVED. I said the same thing about Gary "O.J" Condit and he's now toast. LET'S ROLL! For victory & freedom!!!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.