Migden agrees to pay $350,000 fine to state
CAMPAIGN FUNDS AT THE HEART OF VIOLATIONS
By Steve Geissinger
Mercury News Sacramento Bureau
Article Launched: 03/19/2008 01:32:20 AM PDT
http://www.mercurynews.com/politics/ci_8622605


SACRAMENTO - State Sen. Carole Migden agreed Tuesday to pay a fine of $350,000 to the state's political watchdog agency for 89 violations of the Political Reform Act - including personal use of campaign funds - over a four-year period.

The Fair Political Practices Commission said the San Francisco Democrat and her managers committed the violations from 2003 to 2007.

Migden was elected to the Senate in 2004, and previously served in the Assembly and on the Board of Equalization. She faces a tough re-election bid this year with strong challengers within her own party squaring off for a primary fight in June.

The violations, which occurred while handling millions of dollars in campaign funds, included failure to report credit card use, inaccurate disclosure of cash payments and receipts, and failure to disclose expenditures and fund transfers.

Migden and her current re-election campaign manager did not return phone calls seeking comment Tuesday.

A spokesman for one of Migden's foes in the upcoming primary election said the record fine should preclude her from re-election.

"I don't believe anybody who violates the law to this degree should be writing law," said Tom Higgins, campaign manager for San Francisco Democratic Assemblyman Mark Leno's bid to unseat Migden in the June 3 contest. The commission said the case against Migden was prompted in part by complaints by Leno.

Former Assemblyman Joe Nation, D-San Rafael, also is vying for the seat representing the district that stretches from San Francisco to Sonoma County.

The watchdog commission's settlement with Migden states there was harm because the public was "deprived of important information." It says the severity of the violations was "substantially aggravated . . . by the repeated failure to comply with some of the most basic requirements."

The commission says those basics include establishing a campaign bank account, timely filing of a statement of intent to be a candidate, fulfilling basic record keeping requirements, and timely termination of a candidate-controlled committee.

On Thursday, the Fair Political Practices Commission is scheduled to decide whether to formally accept the agreement its staff negotiated with Migden. The senator, who has signed a stipulation acknowledging the violations, can pay the fines out of her campaign funds.

Previously, the highest recent fine against a state office candidate, according to state records, was $263,000 assessed against then-Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante in 2004 for improperly raising funds during the previous year's gubernatorial recall election.

Migden has a history with the political watchdog commission. In December 2006, she was fined $94,600 for campaign finance violations.

Migden also is waging a lawsuit against the state over whether she can use more than $600,000 in political contributions from earlier campaigns.

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89 campaign money violations over 4 years. Isn't that a clear sign she won't change?

This country is so effing stupid, some days.

Hell, her driving record is enough to make me want to vote her out of office.

Maybe California should slide into the sea?

Wait, she's won the election, so it's over, and her using campaign funds personally and keeping them longer than allowed produces a fine she can pay out of her campaign funds? This looks like free money for her.

... it never ends.