Apparently state Sen. Carole Migden, who represents southern Sonoma County in the state Legislature, spends campaign funds like she drives -- erratically.
That's the clear message from the California Fair Political Practices Commission, which this week slapped her with the largest penalty ever levied against a candidate for state office. The watchdog agency fined Migden $350,000 for a total of 89 violations of state campaign finance law.
Given the details of this complaint, it appears Migden did not just violate campaign finance laws, she basically ignored them.
The violations include improper use of credit cards, improper personal use of campaign funds, failure to disclose campaign contributions, improperly receiving donations prior to declaring her candidacy, failure to itemize political expenses, failure to document withdrawals from bank accounts, failure to timely report contributions and expenditures, etc.
The investigation began with a complaint concerning the itemization of $397,000 in campaign credit card expenses. But it expanded from there. The final FPPC report includes eight citations, from early 2005 to mid-2007, of Migden using campaign funds for undisclosed personal reasons in amounts ranging from $646 to $3,469.
Migden has agreed to pay the fine, but the deal must be approved today when the FPPC meets to vote on the matter. (To see the agenda and read a copy the complaint, go to
http://www.fppc.ca.gov/index.html?id=60)
The violations date from 2003 to last year. During that time, Migden served on the state Board of Equalization (2002 to 2004) and in the state Senate. She is now locked in a competitive primary race for her 3rd District seat against Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, and former North Bay Assemblyman Joe Nation.
(In a separate matter, she is also suing the FPPC for the right to use money from an old Assembly campaign account to help her win re-election.)
Migden's attorney, James Harrison, attributed the errors to a failure to understand the law. He also said that Migden's battle with leukemia -- which she cited as a cause of her wild ride on Highway 80 last year -- distracted her from properly reporting campaign activity.
This might sound plausible if it weren't for the volume of infractions, the dollar amounts involved and the fact that Migden had already been fined twice before by the FPPC -- in 2002 and 2006.
More than sloppy record-keeping, this demonstrates a remarkable lack of respect for the public and the laws set up to ensure accountability for how candidates are funded and how campaign funds are used. Migden owes voters a better explanation for how this happened and how these missing campaign funds were spent.
