San Diego Rostra, a great politics blog, reported yesterday that Sherry Hodges, "[t]he only declared candidate for the Republican nomination in the 74th Assembly District" to succeed termed-limited Martin Garrick, has not only been making calls rounding up support, but also has a new state government job, and will start today as a neighboring Assemblymember’s chief of staff. Hodges will need to be very careful in her new role working for taxpayers in a different Assembly district, because her campaigning for the 74th while on the state payroll is subject to a myriad of ethics and conflict-of-interest rules, and fouling up on them is a civil offense and can be a crime, and can expose not only her to liability, but also her new boss, Assemblymember Diane Harkey. For this reason, Hodges work on the state payroll will not only be regulated by ethics officials, it will also be subject to microscopic inspection by potential opponents in the Assembly race.
Federal and state rules such as the "Hatch Act" exist to ensure that taxpayers are not taken advantage of by public employees, even political appointees on the government payroll, who are not "neutral" regarding partisan election matters, which are outside the scope of a legislator’s duties to taxpayers. Other rules strictly prohibit the use of government resources to support in any way a candidate or potential candidate in a partisan election, such as employee time, and misuse of government owned communications equipment and devices, and travel. The Assembly itself has additional ethics rules which ban such practices.
While it is common for a person interested in running for office to have had the benefit of experience working in the Legislature, and that is a good thing, doing so at the same time news outlets are stating you are "the only declared candidate" for a legislative seat is not a very good thing, especially for Hodges, because it calls into question the real purpose of every call, communication or trip outside Harkey’s Assembly district, and in the 74th, during 9 am to 5 pm, Monday thru Friday.
California’s Attorney General works with the Fair Political Practices Commission to enforce the rules, and has even developed an ethics training course to satisfy the mandatory requirement that all members of the Assembly must take such a course within six months of election. Assembly members are held accountable for the illegal activities of their staff, when they know the activities are illegal. Specific issues include restrictions to ensure that there is no conflict-of-interest in a state employee’s motivations for influencing a governmental decision (such as personal political gain), gift limits, restrictions on free tickets to events, misuse of government resources, and so on.
The race for the 74th to succeed Martin Garrick will occur under new primary election rules and in a reconfigured district after reapportionment. But this district is destined to remain a highly Republican once. Other reported potential candidates for the seat include Escondido’s Marie Waldron, who has been a favorite of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association PAC in past elections, and local council member Jerome Stocks.