Chen launches statewide ad buy + Rally planned at the Capitol

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CHEN RELEASES NEW STATEWIDE AD

Republican California state controller candidate Lanhee Chen is coming to television sets across the state with a multi-million-dollar ad buy blasting his opponent as financially irresponsible.

The ad, titled “Watchdog,” cites an Los Angeles Times report that Democratic opponent Malia Cohen, who chairs the state Board of Equalization, had a business license suspended for failure to file a tax return or pay taxes, and that she defaulted on her home mortgage.

“Cohen can’t handle her own finances, we can’t trust her with ours.”Chen’s ad says. The controller serves as the state’s accountant and fiscal watchdog.

In the ad, Chen points to his bonafides as a former member of both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations and says he will be independent of political influence.

“Today — Sacramento’s go along, get-along attitude wastes billions of your tax dollars,” Chen says in the ad. “It’s why I’ll be a watchdog for your money, not a lapdog for the insiders.”

Reached for comment, Cohen campaign spokesman Joe Armenta said in a statement, “Rather than answering for his record of furthering the national Republicans anti-choice agenda, Lanhee Chen has chosen to take a page out of Donald Trump’s playbook and launch misleading personal attacks against Chair Cohen.”

Cohen purchased her home for $581,178 in 2006, at the height of the housing bubble, and in 2011 she let it go because it was underwater; the condo was listed for $314,900, a little over half what she paid for it, Armenta said.

“As she stated when she first ran for office in 2010, she felt that no one was speaking out for homeowners like her who were left to fend for themselves against the banks that caused the financial crisis,” Armenta said.

As for the business license, Armenta said that there is no outstanding balance reported by the Franchise Tax Board, and that once the error was discovered it was resolved.

He added that Cohen has spent her career passing policies intended to hold companies accountable, including advocating for a homeowner’s bill of rights, pushing for San Francisco to divest the city’s pension fund from Wells Fargo and forcing banks to maintain foreclosed property from blight.

Chen’s ad comes a week after Cohen announced her own statewide ad buy; that ad paints Chen, who says he is pro-choice, as a threat to abortion rights in California.

You can watch the Chen ad here.

RALLY PLANNED AT CAPITOL

Hundreds of people are expected to show up at the Capitol west steps later this month to rally against state agencies charged with helping families, including Child Support Services, Family Court and Child Protective Services.

“Child Protective Services (CPS) and Child Support Services have become misguided. Instead of protecting and supporting families, they often cause unnecessary devastation to the children and families under their jurisdiction,” Michelle D. Chan, founder of California Families Rise, said in a statement. “I know from personal experience that CPS and family court systems are unfair to noncustodial parents and that unnecessarily harsh and restrictive policies are harmful to families and communities as a whole.”

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“Contrary to the popular narrative that Child Protective Services provides care to children and primarily addresses abuse, we know that this system disproportionately targets and impacts poor and working class families who are violently separated from their children for resolvable issues classified as ‘neglect,’” Organizers said in a statement.

The rally is set for Saturday, Oct. 29, at 2 p.m.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“What is happening in Los Angeles now is a defining moment in Latino politics. It will reverberate nationally. It is a generational moment. The mythology of an emerging pluralistic society that can be better than our country’s past is being tested.”

- California GOP consultant Mike Madrid, via Twitter.

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• Some qualifying Californian taxpayers entered a new week with as much as a $1,050 boost thanks to the state’s latest stimulus payment. Now, let’s compare notes. Did you get paid as much as you thought you would? Via Brianna Taylor.

• California’s food assistance program is coping with high staff vacancy rates and struggling to retain workers even as demand rises for the help it offers, advocates and county employees say, via Mathew Miranda.