Fellow Republicans Again Take Aim at DeMaio, Calling for Probe of His Use of Campaign Funds

Three San Diego County elected officials have called for an investigation into the campaign activities of Republican Assembly candidate Carl DeMaio.

Rep. Darrell Issa, State Sen. Brian Jones, and San Diego County Supervisor Joel Anderson, all fellow Republicans, wrote to urge Attorney General Rob Bonta and San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan to open a probe into what they called “misleading campaign advertising” that they alleged was illegally funded by DeMaio’s Reform California PAC.

Issa, Jones and Anderson contend that the political action committee amassed hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years from small donors before recently converting the PAC to a “ballot measure committee.”

These funds were then shifted to Slate Mail Organizations, which the officials claim served as an unlawful vehicle to support DeMaio’s Assembly campaign.

The elected officials argue that DeMaio violated California campaign finance laws due to the alleged misuse of donor contributions.

“Integrity and transparency in campaign finance are essential for a fair democratic process,” Issa said in a statement. “We must hold accountable those who exploit the public’s trust by engaging in deceptive practices to advance personal agendas.”

The action follows Wednesday’s gathering of current and former elected officials on both sides of the aisle who took the extraordinary step of issuing an “anti-endorsement” of DeMaio in his race for the 75th District Assembly seat.

In doing so the group, including Jones, Anderson and Rep. Scott Peters, D-San Diego, threw their support behind DeMaio’s opponent, Andrew Hayes, a Republican.

In the letter to Bonta and Stephan, Issa, Jones and Anderson wrote that “Reform California had hundreds of thousands of dollars prior to converting to a ballot measure
committee.”

DeMaio, they allege, relied on a shell committee, the “California Progressive Voter Guide”
organized as Slate Mailer Organization to move money into his own Assembly campaign.

In their review of campaign finance forms, they found the shell voter guide received
all its funding from entities controlled by or affiliated with DeMaio, including a total of $390,000 from a ballot measure committee and the DeMaio for Assembly fund.

As a result, the trio argues, in order “to adhere to the letter and spirit of the law,” the majority of the communications from the voter guide should be tied to ballot measures that Reform California sought to promote.

Instead, the guide sent mail that they say was “entirely focus(ed)” on DeMaio’s Assembly campaign and “opposing the other candidate in the race.”

Though Issa, Jones and Anderson concede that the mailers “feature a small ribbon” mentioning ballot measures, they nonetheless contend that DeMaio engaged in a “blatant attempt to funnel resources raised into the ballot measure committee” to his personal campaign.