Judicial Candidate Accuses Rival of Violating State Law

A candidate for Ventura County Superior Court accused his political rival Wednesday of violating the state’s campaign finance law by accepting a $2,500 loan from her son.

Defense attorney James M. Farley said Assistant Dist. Atty. Colleen Toy White’s acceptance of the loan violates a statute that limits personal contributions to $1,000 in a special election.

“A candidate running for a judgeship should know the law,” Farley said.

But White and her colleagues at the district attorney’s office say it is Farley who does not understand the law.

The campaign limits only apply in special elections. There is nothing special about this race, Special Assistant Dist. Atty. Donald D. Coleman argued.

“Since the election for the Superior Court Seat No. 4 is part of the regularly scheduled June primary election, it is not, as Mr. Farley seems to believe, a ‘special election,’ ” Coleman wrote in a letter to the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

Coleman referred the case Wednesday to the commission, which promptly referred the question to its legal counsel, a commission official said.

The dispute in the county’s only contested judgeship race is now, quite appropriately, a question of interpreting the law.

White said she agreed with Coleman’s opinion, but Farley remained emphatic that the June 7 polling would be a special election. Farley and White entered the race when incumbent Superior Court Judge Edwin M. Osborne retired from the bench. Osborne’s term would have expired this year.

“A special election is an election that’s called to fill a vacant spot,” Farley said. “While this may fall on a regular election date, it’s still a special election.”

State election officials in Sacramento would not address the specifics of the case Wednesday, but agreed that if the contest turns out to be a special election, White could well have violated the law.

The maximum penalty for such a violation could be $2,000 for each illegal contribution, but such cases are often resolved with just a warning letter, said Jeanette Turvill, spokeswoman for the California Fair Political Practices Commission.

“In all fairness to the candidate, they’re under a totally new set of rules in the special elections and special run-offs,” Turvill said.

Originally, state Proposition 73 set contribution limits for state and local elections. But a federal judge struck down the limits as unconstitutional in all but a handful of cases. One of the exceptions is special elections.