There has been lots of talk about the campaign finance complaints filed against the 2 Nguyens.  Some are saying that Janet is getting picked on by Schroeder and Trung.  To be honest, I really don't know if that is the case or not with the other legal challenges, as I stopped paying attention about 3 months ago and have been trying to stay out of it.

However, in the interest of clarification, I do think that some people may be confused as to the "tit for tat" complaint filed against Trung this week by Shirley Grindle.  The two "issues" are worlds apart, and I tend to think it is her dislike for Schroeder that is the main driving force behind her complaint.  This is too bad really, because campaign contribution violations are serious and should be taken seriously.  The complaint in my opinion is silly and frivolous.

In one instance, we have an elected Supervisor that although she is new to the Board, has held elected office (Garden Grove City Council) and has worked in other Elected's offices (Supervisor Bill Steiner, Supervisor Cynthia Coad, Assemblyman Ken Maddox) over the past 5-10 years.

There are really 3 reasons that her "mistake" causes me to do a double take.  #1, as her experience above would indicate, she certainly knows better then to ask donors for money above any contribution limits; #2, she definitely should know better then to tell ANY donors that their donations will not and do not have to be disclosed; and #3, once this disaster was brought out to the public, it took her over 50 days to refund these donors.

She has said that she received some inaccurate advice from her attorney, and thought she could have a legal defense fund, like state officials. Perhaps this is true, and I could probably swallow that pill IF she had opened a "legal" defense fund bank account, and opened a "legal" defense fund committee, as allowable by state law for state candidates and officeholders. But she did not. I for one know that she is not a dumb girl, and am almost a bit insulted that she has acted like one. What really went on here, who outside of her inner circle truly knows? I suspect though that this is why she was even fined at all....because it "looks" funny but in fact could not be proven that it was intentional. Both the AG and the FPPC control the fine amounts and if they truly believed there was nothing there, the fine would not have been as significant as $5000.

Trung, as far as I can tell, has had no campaign violations in this controversy.  He did not accept nor solicit any funds in excess of the limits. The issue here is that he accepted donations from candidate controlled committees, which is not allowed in the OC Ordinance. Honestly, in the heat of any campaign, I can see how campaigns may take in money that is over the limits or not allowed...for both candidates.  However, it looks as if at least on Trung's end, all monies received were refunded within the 7 day time frame as outlined in the Ordinance. A far cry from 50+ days for sure.

So we shall see what happens with this complaint against Trung. I am confident it will go nowhere...heck even Shirley admits in her own complaint that there is no valid complaint or violation.