Flores’ Disclosure Report Has Errors Similar to Eu’s

They’re gloating at campaign headquarters for Democratic Secretary of State March Fong Eu.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, Eu’s Republican rival, made some mistakes on her recent campaign disclosure statement that seem to mirror those made by Eu in 1986. In her statement filed last week, Flores, in violation of disclosure laws, failed to list about a dozen television stations airing her campaign ads.

For weeks, Flores in television ads and campaign appearances has been hammering at the mistakes made by the four-term incumbent. “How can we expect voters to have faith in the system when our top election cop is one of the biggest offenders?” Flores asked.

Eu’s campaign acknowledges Flores’ errors are “hardly earth-shaking,” but then they have been insisting for months that Eu’s mistakes were also inconsequential. Eu herself characterized her 95 reporting violations--85 of which involved the failure to list radio stations that broadcast her ads--as “inadvertent but not excusable.”

Eu’s campaign consultant, Leo McElroy, discovered the omissions in Flores’ statement this week and reported them to Eu, whose office is the depository of such statements for candidates statewide. McElroy said he was advised that the errors were not within the office’s jurisdiction--the FPPC enforces reporting violations--and that he should notify Flores about the problem.

“I will write a letter to Joan Flores pointing out that her campaign is guilty of the same violations she was so horrified to discover in . . . Eu’s campaign,” McElroy said Friday. “Hey, lady, you have a crack in your glass house.”

When alerted to the mistakes by a reporter, Flores offered a defense similar to that put forth by Eu last March, describing them as “unintentional” and promising to “straighten it out right away.” By Friday afternoon, her campaign had prepared an amendment to her statement itemizing the $87,000 in ads.