Those of you that read this blog know about the rampage jihad against the Placer County Republican Party.
Now, The Capitol Resource Institute now finds itself embroiled in a politically-motivated FPPC investigation. The CRI is trying to qualify the SB48 referendum…
Leave it to the Organization Equality California to light up Karen England and the Capitol Resource Institute. CalWatchdog covered the story here and I have pulled out some excerpts:
The FPPC complaint charges that Capitol Resource Institute has been financially supporting the ballot initiative campaign. Karen England, executive eirector of CRI, said that is not the case. “Stop SB 48 leases office space from us,” she said. “They paid CRI up front for office rent and postage. And our employee was taken off the payroll and went on the the Stop SB 48 payroll right at the beginning of the campaign.” England said that she is even an unpaid volunteer for both CRI and the Stop SB 48 campaign.
When the Capitol Resource Institute ripped off the Prop 8 Campaign for $120k and I had a look at the campaign finance reports – the same pattern enumerated above repeated then. They used a “popular” issue on the right to raise money with and effectively paid the CRI’s bills with the money raised. (Click here to see my investigative report on the Capitol Resource Institute’s fake Prop 8 website)
But England said the campaign has not done anything to violate the campaign laws. “We have gotten thousands of small donations from people all over the state,” England said. “We haven’t hit the $1,000 or $5,000 thresholds for reportable contributions.”
This means that the CRI’s latest fundraiser is not going so well as they have not collected any substantial donations or those donating are giving checks below the threshold so they aren’t written about…
The CRI / Stop SB48 Campaign is claiming they have enough signatures gathered to qualify the initiative. I have seen little or no campaign activity from them at all, which gives me pause.
The moral to this complaint against the CRI is that their executive director has pointed the self-righteous finger at her political adversaries alleging many of the same complaints that the Capitol Resource Institute is now beset with. What’s worse for the CRI is that Equality California probably has far more evidence for their FPPC complaint than the anonymous blog comment that was the spiritual foundation for the rampage jihad against the Placer County Republican Central Committee.
What comes around goes around – and this is sad, because the SB48 referendum is a righteous cause.