$11,000 for Radio Spots : Relative’s Payment of Baker Ads Challenged

Former Irvine City Councilman C. David Baker may have violated federal election laws by allowing a relative to pay $11,000 for radio commercials in the final days of his failed bid to win the Republican nomination in the 40th Congressional District.

Federal law limits individual contributions to $1,000. But Baker’s aunt, Stella Crawford of Coronado in San Diego County, wrote a cashier’s check for $11,000 to a Newport Beach media firm for a series of radio spots that aired during the final weekend of the June 7 primary campaign, Baker campaign manager John Nakaoka said.

Baker, 35, was a leading contender for the GOP nomination in the 40th District, a heavily Republican district that stretches from Fountain Valley to Irvine to Laguna Beach.

He is under investigation by the Orange County district attorney’s office on suspicion of writing an unauthorized check, during the last days of the campaign, on the account of a private health foundation that he headed. No money was ever transferred from the foundation account to his, Baker’s attorney has said, and Baker put a stop-payment order on the check.

Federal Election Commission documents filed last Friday show that Crawford wrote the check on June 3 to Green Stripe Media, which arranged for the radio ads featuring Bruce Herschenson, the widely known conservative commentator. Herschenson endorsed Baker, who finished second in the bitter primary fight to former White House lawyer C. Christopher Cox.

Karen Finucian, an FEC spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., said Wednesday that the agency had not reviewed Baker’s final contribution and expenditure statement for the primary and therefore could not comment on the Crawford contribution or its legality. She did say, however, that the $1,000 limit on individual contributions applied to money as well as in-kind contributions.

Nakaoka said that Crawford’s payment was not discovered by the campaign staff until after the radio ads ran. In an interview from his suburban Cleveland home, Nakaoka acknowledged that Baker had solicited the money from Crawford, but said that Baker viewed the check as a loan from a relative, which he considered legal under federal law.

“Dave believed it was a loan well within the law,” Nakaoka said. “But as soon as the campaign staff discovered it, we were concerned that the (FEC) might not view it as a legitimate transaction. . . .”

Under federal law, loans, other than those from the candidate to himself, are treated just like contributions, FEC spokesman Fred Eiland said. “Loans are simply another form of contributions, subject to the same $1,000 limitation,” he added.

Neither Baker nor his aunt could be reached for comment.

Faces Debt

By reporting the contribution on the FEC statement, Nakaoka said, the campaign has not tried to hide the contribution and wants to cooperate fully to “rectify the matter” if a violation has occurred. One way would be to repay Crawford, but Nakaoka acknowledged that Baker’s campaign finished with a sizable debt, $149,522, including a $94,000 loan from Baker to himself.

Nakaoka said no plans have been made for fund-raising events to retire the debt, but he added that numerous friends of Baker have offered to assist.

A campaign found in violation of the contribution limit can be assessed civil penalties of $5,000 or the amount of the violation, whichever is greater, Finucian said. The penalty assessed a campaign, she said, can depend on how cooperative the candidate is during a review of a potential violation.

“In some cases, repaying the individual is a sufficient mitigation measure,” Finucian said. “Much of it depends on whether the individual or his campaign intentionally may have tried to circumvent the law.”