Whitman
SACRAMENTO (Legal Newsline) - Meg Whitman's campaign team is accusing her gubernatorial opponent, California Attorney General Jerry Brown, of using his office staff for campaigning purposes.
Her campaign filed a Public Records Act request seeking documentation they hope would prove it, according to the Contra Costa Times.
The request, filed late Monday with the state's Attorney General's Office by a Whitman campaign consultant, seeks "what could amount to thousands of pages of employment information" on communication staffers dating back to the 2005-06 fiscal year - before Brown was elected as attorney general.
Sarah Pompei, a spokeswoman for the Republican Whitman, told the Contra Costa Times, "The Brown campaign is using the Attorney General's Office to keep himself in the spotlight.
"This is very serious. There should be absolute certainty that taxpayer-financed resources are not being used to bolster his political image."
The request asks for an annual accounting of employees, their total payroll, the total office budget for every year since 2005-06, details of all expenditures by communications personnel, information on state-owned vehicles used by press staff, travel expense claim forms and calendars and schedules of press staff, among other items.
Sterling Clifford, Brown's spokesman, told the newspaper the request is a political ploy.
"They just want to suggest publicly that Jerry Brown is misusing his office," Clifford said. "They want to level the accusation. Obviously we don't have anything because there isn't anything. Frankly, he almost never travels with his press corps."