CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS: SECRETARY OF STATE : Flores Accuses Eu of Trashing Taxpayer Dollars

Joan Milke Flores, Republican candidate for secretary of state, took her campaign to a large garbage bin in a Los Angeles alley on Monday, accusing Democratic incumbent March Fong Eu of “throwing away millions of taxpayer dollars” by mismanaging the office.

Flores attacked Eu for failed or costly efforts to automate two of the office’s seven divisions and for a series of proof-reading errors on state ballot pamphlets last June and in 1988. Flores said the problems cost more than $6 million to resolve, including $621,000 to reprint millions of corrected pamphlets.

“California simply cannot afford these continuing careless mistakes,” said Flores, displaying a T-shirt created by employees of the state Office of Printing bearing the words, “I Survived the Voter Pamflut of 1988!”

Leo McElroy, Eu’s campaign consultant, called Flores’ charges “incredible distortions of the truth” and said some of the increased costs were beyond Eu’s control. While acknowledging the proof-reading errors, he said Eu’s “good detective work” in one of the automation projects saved the state from buying a computer system for the Uniform Commercial Code Division that did not work.

“I think (Flores) failed to understand what was going on here, or interpreted it to her own satisfaction,” McElroy said.

With the election a month away and polls showing her running a distant second, Flores has moved her campaign into high gear. The allegations Monday came after a week of hard-hitting television commercials, aired in Los Angeles and Sacramento, that accused Eu of reducing fines for campaign violations made by her own reelection committees.

Flores plans to air more television ads, and her campaign is furiously raising money from a loyal core of donors who have supported her during three terms on the Los Angeles City Council. Despite a challenge from Eu to abide by contribution limits under Proposition 73 that were recently ruled unconstitutional, Flores is soliciting donations well above the limits and hopes to top the $1-million mark in the coming weeks.

The assault appears to have caught Eu’s attention. During much of the campaign, the four-term incumbent largely ignored Flores’ challenge, but this weekend she hinted that she may be feeling the heat when she ventured into Flores’ own back yard for a fund-raiser.

“This election year, we face a particularly difficult challenge,” Eu told about 400 supporters at a union hall in Wilmington, one of several communities Flores represents at City Hall. “The opposition is well-funded and committed to avoiding defeat.”