Written by Michael Palomba
Sometimes those in power believe that the rules simply do not apply to them. However, the San Diego County Democratic Party recently learned the hard way that this is not the case.
The California Fair Political Practices Commission recently discovered violations related to campaign spending dating back to 2013. Now, the County Democrats are being fined $9,000 for failure to comply with timely reporting requirements.
There were three specific infractions cited by the commission: failure to report $32,000 in late contributions within 24 hours, failure to disclose $86,000 in payments for member contributions, and making an improper $2,500 contribution to an unidentified state candidate from a restricted account.
All three of the newly discovered violations were committed during the 2013 special election and the 2014 election cycle. There is a maximum fine of $5,000 for each infraction, but the commission settled on a $9,000 fine because the errors were not intentional.
The County Democrats released a statement saying, “The committee contends that it relied on the services of a professional treasurer to properly file all required campaign statements and reports, and provided all necessary documentation to the treasurer … After the committee discovered its violations, it implemented new compliance procedures. The committee also has retained a new treasurer.”
To add insult to injury, this isn’t even the first time that County Democrats have been fined for something like this. In May of 2017, the Party received a $6,000 fine for similar infractions.
Photo by Pepi Stojanovski
