Mayor violates campaign finance laws

An odd thing happened today.

Mayor Ruth Asmundson and law school professor Marty West -- she teaches at UC Davis School of Law, where I just finished my second year -- formed a campaign committee recently. They mailed hundreds of letters to Davis voters, asking them to support Sydney Vergis, a candidate who benefited from thousands of dollars in contributions from the shady firefighters' union when she lost her last run at city council in 2006.

This time, Vergis is ostensibly forgoing any firefighter money -- their money is tainted now, thanks to the good work of blogger David Greenwald over at the People's Vanguard of Davis. She's made a pledge not to take their money, and we can hold her to that pledge because she must report her contributions to the city clerk. So far, so good.

But Mayor Asmundson and West's "independent" campaign committee isn't held to the same reporting requirements as Vergis's campaign. Their "independent" expenditures are reported on a different timetable, and although they've already printed those letters, we won't know how they paid for them until June 3rd, a mere five days before the election. And the rules on contributions to committees are looser, too.

The problems run deeper:

• Mayor Asmundson's daughter Alinia Asmundson is the treasurer of Sydney Vergis's campaign. Since the Mayor's "independent" committee isn't supposed to consult or coordinate in any way with Vergis's campaign, this seems very shady. Does the Mayor honestly claim that she formed a campaign committee and started publishing advertisements for Vergis without mentioning it to her daughter -- Vergis's treasurer? Yeah, right.
  
  
• The Mayor and Professor West's "independent" committee mailed a letter on May 22nd supporting Sydney Vergis. The Davis Municipal Code (section 12.01.055(c))requires a copy of that letter to be sent to all candidates and the city clerk within 24 hours, via fax, overnight mail, or personal delivery. No candidate received a letter within 24 hours, which is a blatant violation of Davis's campaign finance law. According to the Davis Vanguard, West and Asmundson didn't send a copy to the city clerk, either.
  
  
• If the Mayor and Professor West "knowingly" or "willfully" violated the law, they are guilty of a misdemeanor, punishable by 6 months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
  
  
• At this point, I still haven't received a notice of the letter by personal delivery, overnight delivery, or fax. Professor Martha West sent me an email this morning (3 days after the deadline), but the law requires overnight delivery, fax, or personal delivery. I've received no missives from either West or Asmundson through the specified methods.

If nothing else, this demonstrates why fixing the Municipal Code is so important to me. The fact that the Mayor doesn't know the Code well enough to avoid possibly committing a misdemeanor shows that there's something seriously wrong either with the Code or with the mayor.