When it appears in news reports, Shirley Grindle's name is usually followed by the moniker "watchdog." Even Steve Greenhut, who had been a long-time Grindle critic, has begun bestowing that honorific on her lately (must be an enemy-of-my-enemy dynamic at work). I've long been skeptical of that appellation, and I don't think its at all applicable to her recent actions.

As OC politicos know, Grindle's bête noire is Mike Schroeder. And her actions in the Trung v. Janet death-match have far more to do with her animus toward Schroeder than any concern with the fair enforcement of TIN CUP.

For starters, Shirley Grindle was actually upset the state Fair Political Practices Commission. You heard right. Ms. Grindle usual complaint is there isn't enough enforcement of TIN CUP, and that what enforcement there is takes too long.

So here we have a case where a candidate was hit with a fairly substantial fine for violating TIN CUP in a rapid -- by FPPC standards -- enforcement action.

And that bothers Shirley. Which is fine. Shirley is free to be bothered about anything she likes, a liberty she exercises liberally.

But Shirley takes it one step further and "in the interest of justice for all" files a complaint against Trung Nguyen. Quoth Ms. Grindle in today's Buzz column:

So Grindle promptly filed a complaint against Trung for campaign violations that, like Janet's, had long since been corrected. In the complaint, she frankly stated the retaliatory nature of her action.

"Normally I would never file a complaint on someone who cooperated in returning illegal contributions," she wrote. "But having seen that the AG's office decided to fine Supervisor Janet Nguyen over very similar and inadvertent violations that she remedied, it would be unfair to not treat Trung Nguyen with the same consideration."

Shirley is essentially admitting to filing a frivolous, merit-less complaint as a retaliatory action -- exactly the sort of thing she has denounced in the past.

And her excuse is dishonest, to boot. There's no similarity between Trung's and Janet's violations -- either in nature or in response -- as Flowerszz illuminated in a post last Friday.

And to characterize the illegal legal defense fiasco as inadvertent strains credulity. When the story broke in May, here's what Shirley Grindle told the LA Times:

"If that isn't evasion, I don't know what is," she said. "They can't do this."

Evasion is intentional -- not inadvertent.

"In the interest of justice for all," my foot. There's no nexus between justice and Grindle's FPPC complaint. The nexus is with her dislike of Mike Schroeder. Her complaint is in the interest of spite.

And this is the same person who wants the Board of Supervisors to create a county FPPC into which her anima can be embalmed upon her passing. Does the blueprint for this agency that Shirley submitted to Sup. Moorlach's office empower this proposed agency to deal out retaliatory fines in order to "keep things fair"?

The Board of Supes ought to keep that in mind next time Shirley harangues them.

Rather than getting worked up because the FPPC fined the enemy of her enemy, perhaps Ms. Grindle can take satisfaction there's a provision of TIN CUP actually worked.

The reason the matter of Sup. Nguyen's illegal legal defense fund was resolved so quickly -- as Martin Wiskcol correctly pointed out -- was due to TIN CUP's provision allowing a private party to sue if, after filing a complaint, the complaint isn't prosecuted within 120 days (I'm summarizing Section 1-6-16(c) of TIN CUP into plain English. Faced with the nightmarish prospect of being litigated by Schroeder on a matter she was virtually certain to lose, the Janet Nguyen campaign wisely worked to settle the matter as quickly as possible with the FPPC.

I suppose, however, there can be no joy in Grindleville because Mike Schroeder's machinations were the proximate cause of the expeditious settlement.