With ballots only weeks away from being mailed out across San Diego County, state election regulators have received a new complaint against Carl DeMaio, who is running for the open 75th district seat in the state Assembly.
The Fair Political Practices Commission is now reviewing the allegations filed by Brian Marvel, the longtime San Diego police officer who serves as board president of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, or PORAC.
The claim, which state elections regulators received early this month, alleged that DeMaio violated campaign contribution limits and misused donations to Reform California, a political committee he previously founded. It also accused the campaign of failing to properly disclose its spending on advertising and violating rules governing slate mailers.
“Based on publicly available information, it appears that Mr. DeMaio has misused Reform California funds to benefit his Assembly campaign in direct violation of state law,” the complaint says.
The Marvel complaint is separate from an ongoing investigation into DeMaio’s campaign practices that was opened in February but has not yet been completed.
DeMaio spokesperson Jen Jacobs issued a statement Friday rejecting the latest accusations, calling them the latest in a series of attempts to discredit the candidate.
“The political establishment doesn’t like that Carl DeMaio fights them and has exposed their corruption, so they have filed blatantly false and frivolous complaints against our campaigns for years,” she wrote.
“It won’t distract or intimidate Carl DeMaio into backing down from fighting them and reforming our broken state,” Jacobs added.
The FPPC investigation does not mean DeMaio has done anything wrong.
Rather, the opening of a case based on a complaint means enforcement officials completed a first-look review of the information in the complaint and determined there was enough material to warrant an investigation.
DeMaio, who served one term on the San Diego City Council between 2008 and 2012, is facing Andrew Hayes in the race to succeed Marie Waldron in the California Assembly.
PORAC, the statewide police officers association that lobbies for policies and legislation to benefit law enforcement personnel across the state, endorsed Hayes. Hayes is a member of the Lakeside Union School District board of trustees who also serves on the San Diego County Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board.
Both DeMaio and Hayes are Republicans.
DeMaio claimed almost 43 percent of the vote in the March primary election. Hayes finished second in a field of six candidates with just under 19 percent.
The GOP holds a double-digit lead over Democrats in ed voters across the 75th Assembly District, which includes much of the county and stretches from the U.S.-Mexico border north to Palomar Mountain.
For the record: An earlier version of this story misstated the timing of a Fair Political Practices Commission investigation into Carl DeMaio's campaign for state Assembly. The story has been updated to clarify that the complaint received by the FPPC earlier this month is under review and that the separate investigation now underway was opened in February.
