The new chairwoman of the state's Fair Political Practices Commission has come under fire from a fellow appointee to the five-member panel, who said she is working to "help politicians who don't like the FPPC regulations."

Commissioner Ronald Rotunda blasted Chairwoman Ann Ravel's handling of several major issues that the commission has considered in recent months, including a revamp of gift regulations and whether to aid politicians whose accounts have been affected by the case of a prominent Democratic campaign treasurer accused of fraud.

"They say that not even the devil knoweth the mind of man, so I don't presume to know what is her intent … (but) I know she acts like someone who wants to deconstruct a good chunk of the FPPC," Rotunda said in an interview Friday evening.

The Chapman University law professor, a Republican appointed to the commission in 2009 by state Controller John Chiang, called Ravel's effort Thursday to win approval of a sweeping overhaul of the rules governing gifts to officials "mind-boggling," considering he first saw the latest version that morning.

He also accused Ravel, a Democrat appointed to the post in February by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, of allowing agency staff members and its new general counsel, also a Brown appointee, to take actions that he said should be left up to the commission.

"Under her theories, there isn't much role for the commission except to be a little window dressing," he said.

Ravel, a former deputy attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice, dismissed Rotunda's criticisms, saying he was not in a position to judge her motives, given their limited interactions. "I think he's obviously a very angry person and is upset about something and is just using this as an excuse," she said in an interview.

Ravel said that while it might have been ambitious to take on all of the gift rule changes Thursday along with other agenda items, public notice of meeting agendas and draft regulations under her watch has been "so much greater than ever before in the history of the FPPC."

"Everybody has had an enormous amount of information about the gift regs and that has been going on for months, so for Mr. Rotunda to explain that he did not have sufficient time to review them is ludicrous," she said.

The two had sparred at the start of Thursday's commission meeting over a legal opinion on issues related to the Kinde Durkee fraud case. Rotunda questioned whether the recommendations drafted by the FPPC's attorney had taken effect without the commission's blessing. He complained Friday that staff had not posted online a response to an opinion he had submitted for the public record.

Ravel said the legal counsel's opinion had not been adopted but was drafted as "legal advice to inform the commission about how to go forward on their policy decisions."

"The commission does not act without legal advice," she said. "They can disregard it if they choose, but legal advice is appropriate to inform policy decisions."

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Call Torey Van Oot, Bee Capitol Bureau, (916) 326-5544.

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