Former La Follette Aide Wages Campaign by Complaint

Most of the time, politicians wage campaigns by running television commercials, mailing brochures to voters and spreading nasty rumors about their opponents.

But a new kind of campaign is developing in the race to succeed retiring Republican Assemblywoman Marian La Follette: campaign by complaint.

On Thursday, Assembly candidate Robert Wilcox said he filed a complaint with the state Fair Political Practices Commission, alleging that his chief opponent, real estate broker Paula Boland, failed to report her campaign expenses properly.

Wilcox, Boland and three less well-known Republicans are competing for the GOP nomination June 5 to replace La Follette, who abruptly announced last month that she won’t seek a sixth term in the Republican-dominated 38th Assembly District, which covers the northern San Fernando Valley.

Wilcox, 24, said that although Boland reported raising more than $28,000 last month, she did not report expenditures for hotel rooms, telephone calls, postage and “high-priced Sacramento political consultants.”

Boland’s campaign statement, which covers March 1 through March 17, lists an unpaid $496 bill for printing but no other expenses for that period.

Wilcox said he saw Boland at the state GOP convention in Santa Clara last month and that one of his supporters received a political mailer from her. He also said Boland made a trip to Sacramento last month to drum up support for her campaign.

“Paula incurred expenses . . . without reporting spending any money,” he said in a press release. “ . . . I would call it creative political bookkeeping.”

Boland, 50, rejected Wilcox’s charges as “hogwash,” saying there was nothing wrong with her campaign report.

She said she attended the GOP convention as a delegate and the trip was paid for by her husband, who also paid for her Sacramento trip. In any event, she said, both trips were made before she became a candidate. She announced her candidacy March 1 but said she did not file official papers until March 9.

“I was a private citizen, I was not a candidate,” she said. “He’s really picking at straws. . . . These charges are irresponsible; they’re childlike.”

Boland said she has sent out only one campaign mailer to date, and it was reported as the unpaid printing bill for $496.

Contacted at his home, FPPC Executive Director Gregory Baugher said he “wouldn’t feel confident answering” whether political expenditures made before a candidate files official papers must be reported. Other commission officials could not be reached last night.

Wilcox’s complaint comes just two weeks after Boland filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to force Wilcox to change his job description on the June ballot from “assembly members’ legislative representative.”