Are California Democrats Breaking California Campaign Finance Law?
The Sacramento Bee offers this news update, “GOP says Democrats breaking campaign law.” It begins: “The California Republican Party filed a complaint with the Fair Political Practices Commission on Tuesday charging that the state Democratic Party has violated campaign spending laws by running issue advocacy ads against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger within 45 days of the election. The complaint charged that the Democrats have relied on ‘unlimited’ contribution funds to pay for the issue ads that purport to link Schwarzenegger with President Bush. Such spending is barred in the final 45 days of a campaign under Proposition 34 campaign financing limits, the Republican complaint said.” Bob Salladay has posted a snippet of an earlier letter written by the head of the California GOP to the head of the California Democratic Party. It is not clear, however, that the Democrats are breaking the law, at least under a literal reading of the statute. Here is the relevant statute, California Government
