United States: Shelley Should Face Recall, But Not Yet Resignation

California’s Secretary of State Kevin Shelley is in hot water. The California Republican Assembly and at least one major newspaper have called on him to resign over several scandals that involve the use of government funds to promote Shelley’s career. But calls for resignation are premature. However, there is enough evidence to warrant a recall election.

The case against Shelley grows stronger every day. So far we know that one of his key fundraisers, Julie Lee, appears to have illegally laundered at least $205,000 in contributions to his 2002 campaign committee. Some of the money came from a state grant that was supposed to go to the building of a community center, but which instead was funneled through contractors and other middlemen to Shelley’s campaign.

Recent documents now demonstrate that contractors who received federal money intended for non-partisan voter registration through the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) used part of those funds to attend political events on behalf of Shelley. Even staff who work for Shelley say that these actions are "hard to justify."

A new charge is that Shelley accepted a $2000 check in his official office from a donor seeking a favor. The donor corroborates the story, which would be a misdemeanor offense punishable by a fine of up to $10,000.

Shelley claims to have known nothing about Lee’s alleged money laundering and it’s conceivable that he did not know what every consultant he hired to do HAVA work was doing. Multiple federal and state entities are investigating these incidents, but even politicians are innocent until proven guilty. Until and unless investigators find Shelley was actively involved in wrongdoing, he need not resign.

But the question remains as to whether Shelley deserves to be our Secretary of State in the first place. Shelley defeated former Secretary of State March Fong Eu by a mere 104,379 votes in the March 5, 2002 primary. A Field Poll released just a month before the election actually showed him in 3^rd place in the race.

Shelley moved from third to first by spending money -- a lot of it. He spent a total of $3,579,653 on his campaign, with at least $1.5 million raised prior to the primary. March Fong Eu reports spending only $368,566 on her campaign. At least $100,000 of Shelley’s questionable campaign funds came prior to the March primary -- about 6% of his funds raised at that time. Would Shelley still have won his primary had he not had that $100,000 on hand to spend?

Shelley’s general election opponent, Keith Olberg, spent $1,589,741 on his campaign, less than half of Shelley’s expenditures. Yet he came in just 286,294 votes behind Shelley. Would Shelley have won the general election without laundered funds?

There’s no way to know for sure. Money isn’t everything in politics, but it’s close. The candidate who spent the most won 97% of the time in the 2002 election cycle. The allegedly laundered contributions were the largest gifts Shelley had received from any individual at the time he got them. They may have helped him raise other funds or appear more viable to the media based on his fundraising success. They certainly allowed him to run more ads.

If a quarterback throws a touchdown pass but one of his offensive linemen illegally holds a defensive player, the touchdown is rescinded and the play is run over again. While you don’t necessarily fire the quarterback, the touchdown is forfeited.

At a minimum, this is the situation Kevin Shelley is in. His teammates appear to have committed violations that helped him win office unfairly. With that very election in question, Californians deserve a do-over. While not a perfect process, a recall is the best way to resolve things. If Shelley is personally cleared of serious violations and if he can win the support of a majority of voters without the advantages of laundered contributions and with voter knowledge of how he has handled the HAVA funds, then he should stay in office. But in any case, our system for financing political campaigns deserves a serious overhaul. If Shelley survives, he should make that his top priority.