California GOP accuses DeMaio of fake party endorsements in dueling voter guides
The California Republican Party has accused Assemblymember Carl DeMaio of trying to trick voters into believing his favored candidates for office were endorsed by the party in a competitive Southern California state Senate primary race. The party issued a cease and desist dated May 14.
DeMaio sent out mailers labeled “Republican Official Endorsement Guide” which carried an image of an elephant, the usual logo of the Republican Party, according to the letter authored by Ashlee Titus, general counsel for the Republican Party. On a website affiliated with his political fundraising operation, Reform California, DeMaio advertised a “Republican Central Committee Slate,” according to the letter.
The California Republican Party has not endorsed Kristi Bruce-Lane, the state Senate candidate DeMaio touted on his mailers, or any candidate in that primary race.
“You know exactly what you are doing when you brand a paid slate mailer with the words ‘OFFICIAL,’ ‘Republican Central Committee Slate,’ and the Republican Party’s elephant emblem,” Titus wrote. “Your conduct is not a mistake. It is a calculated deception of California’s Republican voters, and it will not be tolerated.”
Titus also accuses DeMaio of fundraising off a false affiliation with the Republican Party, an action she suggests would violate election code. “The (California Republican Party) reserves every right to pursue criminal referrals as well as civil remedies,” Titus wrote.
The attorney suggested Reform California could have to turn over any donations raised as a result of the mailer and website, as well as damages, and orders DeMaio to preserve communications because “litigation is likely to ensue in this matter.”
In a statement to The Sacramento Bee, a spokesperson for Reform California dismissed the letter as a political attack against DeMaio. It’s yet to be seen how far the party would go against DeMaio, who has emerged as a thorn in its side as he runs an independent and successful fundraising operation, featuring media and floor speeches in which he castigates both Democrats and his fellow Republicans in Sacramento.
DeMaio has built his own particularly cogent political organization in San Diego Republican circles, according to previous reporting by CalMatters.
“It comes as no surprise that the failed Establishment Republican Party insiders are attacking Carl DeMaio and his Reform California movement because we are doing the job that the party has failed to do for so many years like leading the fight against the Democrats throughout our state and getting voter ID on the ballot,” Reform California communications director Dylan Martin wrote in the statement.
Martin suggested that other Republicans are circulating equally misleading mailers, but that the party is targeting DeMaio.
On his mailer endorsing Bruce-Lane, DeMaio warns voters away from a separate voter guide put together by those other Republicans, with whom he has an increasingly deep feud. That mailer is from a group associated with U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-San Diego, a DeMaio foe. It also carries the Republican elephant. The mailer says it is the “Republican Leadership Official Endorsement Guide.” On its website, the leadership group endorses Bruce-Lane’s opponent, Ed Musgrove.
In small print in one corner the mailer’s authors disclaim that it is not in fact a publication of the party itself.
“Warning: Democrats are sending you fake Republican voter guides,” DeMaio said in his guide.
The Republican leadership mailer similarly warns voters away from DeMaio and Reform California’s missive — though it doesn’t accuse him of belonging to the opposing political party.
“Don’t be fooled by other misleading mailers,” California Republican Senate Leader Brian Jones, who has clashed repeatedly with DeMaio, said on the mailer.
