A flurry of news came out of the governor's race this morning, three days after Republican candidate Meg Whitman unleashed her first negative ads against rival Steve Poizner.
First, the California Democratic Party distributed a certificate of certified assessment issued by the state of Massachusetts showing it assessed Whitman $1648.58 for failing to pay taxes for her household staff in Brookline, Mass., from 1995 to 1999 or hadn't filed contribution reports for that period. Whitman moved to California in early 1998.
The Massachusetts Division of Unemployment Assistance said Monday that the account listed under Whitman's employment number from the period no longer had any payments due and that the account had ceased.
Whitman's campaign has not yet responded to Bee questions about the assessment. The Democrats are demanding that Whitman release her tax records from that period to clear up the issue.
Then, former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice announced her endorsement of Whitman, saying in a news release distributed by the campaign, "She is a proven leader who developed a small start-up company into a global economic powerhouse and encouraged entrepreneurialism at all levels of society. Meg will do what is needed to get California back on track."
Finally, Poizner was scheduled to file his candidacy papers in San Jose this morning, putting to rest, his campaign says, questions about whether he would drop out of the race.
UPDATE: Whitman communications chief Tucker Bounds said Whitman paid the assessment over her home staff's unemployment taxes when her husband Griffith R. Harsh wrote a $304.15 check to the Massachusetts Division of Employment and Training. Bounds said the state had reduced the assessment to that amount from $1,648.58.
Bounds also said Whitman and her husband had underpaid their staff's taxes due to a "clerical error" and sent The Bee a copy of a $304.15 check written by Harsh to the state, e-mails between Harsh and his accountant and a document from the state of Massachusetts showing the assessment had been "satisfied in full" more than two months after it had originally been issued.
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