Mar 19, 2008 12:26 am US/Pacific
State Sen. Migden Slapped With Campaign Fines
SACRAMENTO (AP) ―
A lawmaker facing a tough re-election campaign has agreed to pay a $350,000 fine for nearly 90 violations of campaign finance laws.
It is the largest penalty ever imposed by California's political watchdog agency on a state legislator.
The Fair Political Practices Commission on Tuesday released a stipulation signed by Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco, acknowledging she had violated 89 counts of the Political Reform Act from 2003 to 2007. That included using more than $16,000 in campaign donations for personal use.
Other violations included failing to report tens of thousands of dollars in contributions on time, understating more than $236,000 in campaign receipts and nearly the same amount in expenditures, failing to keep proper records and failing to spell out credit card charges.
The commission's staff said Migden reported additional problems with her campaign finances after she was fined $94,600 in 2006. That fine was for failing to file timely contribution reports.
The FPPC staff credited Migden with cooperating in the current investigation, but in a 35-page report said she deserved nearly the maximum potential fine of $445,000 because of the "clear pattern of violations." That included "the repeat failure to comply with some of the most basic requirements of the act."
"The public harm inherent in these types of violations is that the public is deprived of important information such as the sources and amounts of contributions to a campaign and the amounts expended by the campaign," the report said.
The commission will consider accepting the $350,000 fine during a special meeting on Thursday.
The fine is the latest action in a stormy relationship between the sometimes volatile lawmaker and the FPPC.
In 2002, she was fined $16,000 for failing to file timely contribution reports. Migden also is suing the commission over whether she can use $647,000 in an old campaign account for her re-election battle.
She is facing Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, and former Assemblyman Joe Nation, D-San Rafael, in the June Democratic primary.
A San Leandro attorney representing Migden, James Harrison, said the lawmaker had no idea there were any shortcomings in her campaign finance reporting until she was hit with the 2006 fine.
"She had been battling cancer," he said. "She was focusing her energy on her duties as an officeholder and delegated the responsibility for the nuts and bolts of campaign responsibilities to others.
"The 2006 fine was a wakeup call to her. She hired a professional treasurer and instituted a top-to-bottom review of her campaign committees to make sure they were in compliance with the law."
Her decision to tell the FPPC about the problems that review found was "in many ways a textbook example of what we should expect from a public official," Harrison said. "She identified a problem. She reported it to the FPPC. She took responsibility for it and worked to correct it."
He said Migden would pay the fine herself and not ask her former campaign treasurer, Roger Sanders, and his assistant, Eric Potashner, to assume part of the responsibility. Both were named as respondents along with Migden in the FPPC staff report.
Nation said Migden's acknowledgment that she had used campaign money for personal use eight times was inexcusable.
"I can understand perhaps once or twice making expenditures that the FPPC deemed not appropriate," he said. "It's hard to imagine how someone could use a campaign credit card eight times for personal purposes. The voters are the ones who have to decide if she deserves to stay in the seat."
The staff report didn't say what the personal spending was for, but it did say Migden had repaid the $16,317 to her campaign committee last year.
Tom Higgins, Leno's campaign manager, said the violations revealed "an ongoing act of hubris in the way in which (Migden) regards the office. This isn't about public service; it's about Carole Migden service," he said.
Leno filed a complaint with the FPPC last year questioning Migden's compliance with campaign finance laws.
Migden, 59, also was thrust into the public light last year after a wild ride on Interstate 80 in her state-issued SUV.
She was placed on two years of informal probation and fined $710 following her erratic drive, which ended when her SUV rear-ended another vehicle. Several motorists called 911, saying she was bouncing off the center median, weaving in and out of traffic and cutting off other drivers.
Migden said her doctors determined that the incident was the result of a medical condition. She said she was diagnosed with leukemia in 1997 and was taking medication to control it.
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