2020’s Worst Money Flows Through “The Ethicals”

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(Note: this is a continuation of my exploration into where Poseidon donates its money, which led me to a group whose name I vaguely remember but whose significance I hadn’t grasped.  It ended up having less to do with Poseidon than with Irvine and Santa Ana.

It is a case study on how difficult it is to figure out which donor supported which cause when their contributions all get mixed together into a 501(c)(4) SuperPAC.)  Note that the VOC’s Nick Gerda — who after all does get paid for this sort of thing — did a better job of reaching conclusions about who was funding whom, but he doesn’t include the insane amount or raw data that I have. If you want to see all of my original story, which I regret to say I haven’t (and won’t by today have) had a chance to update, click here.  I pick up its narrative at its end.)

Finally, how about that $35,000 for “Taxpayers for Ethical Government”?  A minuscule $4,621 independent expenditure to oppose Janet Nguyen for Assembly — they’re apparently still pissed at her displacing their darling Tyler Diep in the primary!

The big recipient from donations through what I’ll call “The Ethicals” was Stacy Lynn Taylor, whom we already know is a bad egg.

Do not vote for Stacy Lynn Taylor; vote for Karl Seckel, as John Earl has already advised!

Researching Poseidon’s contributions, though, led me to a long dive into what was going on with The “Ethicals” — and that will be the topic of a separate post tomorrow at the last minute!

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(Note: I’m going to “hide the ball” about one respect of the Ethicals until the end.)

Targets of the ironically named Taxpayers for Ethical Government: left to right, Gold Coast Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris; Irvine Council candidate Tammi Kim (with an inset of Lauren Johnson-Norris, to remind you to vote for both), and Santa Ana Council candidate, and apparently bane of SAPOA, Thai Viet Pham. Esq.

First let’s see what kind of contributors the “Ethicals” enjoy, much of which was just recently filed … OOOOH!  NOT GOOD!  (Note the $3000 contribution from Denis Bilodeau, too!)  Oh, we’ll need to dig deep on this one!  Buckle in!

And, it looks like the “Ethical Government” folks sent THEIR money to the “Alliance for Jobs and the Economy,” so we’ll have to look at them too!

Late Contributions Made

There are no other late contributions so let’s look at their late and significant expenditures!

Late Independent Expenditures

Here are some of their earlier expenditures as well, to round things out.

I include these next few from the primary to show that they’re not all bad — these miscreants did help sweep Poseidon’s plaything Tyler Diep out of the Assembly!

Here are some of their specific expenditures, just to round things out:

Some tidbits:

• As I recall — could be wrong — Bieber Communications is Brett Barbre’s shop; if so now we have a sense of what he’s making moonlighting while Executive Director of the Yorba Linda Water District.
• Stacy Lynne Taylor got $33,458.88.  Seems like a cheap fee for $35,000!  Oh yeah, they made Bilodeau cough up $3000 too — and that sounds just like just about the right profit margin for $38,000!  (But my other guess is that Bilodeau’s money went for Joe Dmitru’s $2800 minus 88 cents.)
• What was SAPOA doing with it’s $49,000 (probably $41,650 or so after fees.)  Well — it looks like they’re supporting Cynthia Contreras for District 1 ($5,000) while opposing Thai Viet Phan ($10,012) and supporting Jose Solorio for Mayor ($1,500) while opposing Ceci Iglesias ($9,838).  Huh, that’s only $26,350!  Does that mean that there is another $15,300 in (most likely) attacks either in the pipeline or already out, but not yet reported?  That would be my guess!  (It will be pretty funny if Vince beats Solorio….)
• Where is that $89,000 from the California Apartment Association and that Irvine based National Association of Office Properties going?  I think we can presume that they’re going respectively to oppose Prop 21 (rent control) and Prop 15 (split roll).  But only $15,000 has been spent on each — so is the other $59,000 really just sitting around?  (Is part of it going to that Alliance for Jobs and the Economy group up in Hilmar?  Could be!)  My guess is that some of it may be going to support Diane Dixon’s effort to defeat Cottie Petrie-Norris.  Toting it up, not necessarily perfectly, that race has $75,028.30 going to support Dixon and $73,063.50 to attack Cottie.  My guess is that the $100,000 contributor from Thousand Oaks and the Building Industry Association may be putting up this money — but for $148,091.80 — $174,225.65, if, as I suspect, the agent has a 15% profit margin — their combined $123,500 is not enough.  Add back in $59,000 from the over-payment for the attacks on the two propositions, though, and there’s more than enough — enough to fund that $20,000 for that Alliance, if you also add in the money from We Deserve Better.
• That leaves us with one last huge contributor and one last huge expense: Irvine.  The Ethicals are spending $24,348 to support incumbent Mayor Christine Shea, $23,535,04 to support City Council candidate Mike Carroll … and $31,117.07 to oppose City Council candidate Tammi Kim — A total of $61,000.11.

So who are these people, anyway?  I started to look through their historical activities — the name did strike me as somewhat familiar — and this is what I found about its prior identities.  The are:

Irvine Measure BB?  I looked it up and found this:

ARGUMENT IN FAVOR OF MEASURE BB
“The Irvine Support Our Schools Initiative of 2012.”
Support Our Schools – Vote YES on Measure BB!
Our Irvine schools are facing an emergency and desperately need our
support. That is why 18,000 of your fellow Irvine residents signed petitions to place Measure BB, the Support Our Schools (SOS) Initiative, on the City of Irvine November 6th ballot. …

…
Sadly, we cannot depend on Sacramento to protect the quality of our
schools in Irvine. Measure BB provides funding to Irvine schools, which Sacramento politicians can’t take away. Vote YES on Measure BB.

Please join our campaign at www.SOSIrvine.com
s/ Larry Agran
Irvine City Councilmember
Chair – Yes on Measure BB
s/ PK Wong
Irvine Finance Commissioner
Co-Chair – Yes on Measure BB
s/ Carolyn Inmon
Retired Teacher
Irvine Child Care Committee
Co-Chair – Yes on Measure BB

Whaaaaaaaaat????

Look, I probably supported Measure BB at the time; that’s not the point.  The point is that this PAC has done very little prior to now other than to support Agran’s positions in Irvine (plus one race in Riverside) — so does Agran have any ties to this PAC?

It is spending money for Shea and Carroll — which would seem to be against Agran’s interests — but his greatest interest is getting elected.  It is spending serious money against his “slate-mate” Tammy Kim — one of his biggest rivals (along with Lauren Johnson-Norris and whoever the other leading Republican is) for the second spot if Shea and Carroll both win.

Objectively, the losers, if this slate has its way, are Kim and Mayoral candidate Farrah Khan , and maybe Johnson-Norris– all of whom are Democrats.  This makes sense if Shea and Carroll are in cahoots — and if Carroll wants to back-stab his supporter Khan — and consider Agran’s election a fait accompli, in which event Agran doesn’t have to be in on it — despite its having been his instrument in the past.  (But then why go after Kim and not Johnson-Norris — or Agran himself?)

I don’t think that it’s Agran himself.  In the previous cycle, its major funders were Building Industry Association of Southern California PAC and OCTAXPAC, both generally Republican instruments, despite (respectively) Jordan Brandman and Lucy Dunn.  Two cycles ago it had funding from the OCGAP and Dishonest Dave Gilliard’s California Taxpayers Association. Three cycles ago, it got $37,000 from Poseidon.  Four cycles ago, when Measure BB was on the ballot, it reported no activity at all.  Which is weird.

There’s no time to do anything about any of this now, but it will be interesting to see who was going after Farrah and Tammi — could it be Corona del Mar’s John Croul?  Could it be whoever runs this PAC (maybe a developer’s interest) on their own with money given to this Republican-loving group to fund whatever they’d like?  It’d be especially weird if it’s someone associated with Larry Agran.