For all the worry about the $11 million donation that donors routed through an obscure Arizona nonprofit, Democrats scored huge wins with a Proposition 30 victory and Proposition 32 defeat.
But they remain angry over the contribution, whose true source has yet to be revealed.
In a post-election conference Thursday, Democratic strategist Gale Kaufman made clear several times that she resents the money infusion that helped fuel ads for Proposition 32, the anti-labor measure she worked against.
Kaufman said Democrats still intend to push for sanctions against people involved in the donation, at one point saying they will "fight to get the $11 million back." That was an apparent reference to the state penalty for cloaking donors through an intermediary, which is a payment to the state general fund equal to the amount of the contribution.
Beth Miller, on the same panel as Kaufman, said her Small Business Action Committee, which received the controversial donation, disclosed everything according to state law.
Miller said the money came to her group because longtime president Joel Fox is well known to Republican donors. "It's not that big a country," she added. "They knew and were aware of our effort."
– Kevin Yamamura
ELECTION WATCH
Termed-out Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi, D-Castro Valley, at last count, is running third behind Richard Valle and Mark Green in her bid for the Alameda County Board of Supervisors. Hayashi, who pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor shoplifting charge earlier this year, was seeking the seat vacated by Nadia Lockyer, state Treasurer Bill Lockyer's estranged wife.
– Bee Capitol Bureau
WORTH REPEATING
"There was nothing that we can point to that she did wrong to get us the results we got."
ASSEMBLYMAN BRIAN JONES, Santee Republican, explaining why the Assembly GOP caucus retained leader Connie Conway, despite losing enough seats that Democrats apparently will have a two-thirds majority in the Legislature
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