Baugh Victory Bittersweet for GOP : Politics: Assemblyman who won as Doris Allen was ousted is focus of probe in alleged campaign finance violations.

The recall last week of former Assembly Speaker Doris Allen was supposed to be honey on Republican lips.

Instead, the simultaneous election of Assemblyman Scott Baugh (R-Huntington Beach), which assured the Republicans a majority in the Legislature’s lower house, has become bittersweet.

Baugh is the focus of an unfolding investigation by the Orange County district attorney’s office for possible campaign finance violations and links to the aborted candidacy of Laurie Campbell, a Democrat.

Campbell was removed from the 67th Assembly District ballot a month before the recall and replacement elections by a Sacramento Superior Court judge amid allegations by the Democrats that she was a “stealth candidate” recruited by GOP leaders seeking to siphon votes from Baugh’s chief Democratic opponent, Linda Moulton-Patterson.

And in a weird twist to an already bizarre electoral contest, Baugh last week admitted receiving a $1,000 contribution from Campbell’s husband, Republican Rick Campbell, saying he “inadvertently omitted” it on three campaign finance reports until the one he filed shortly before polls closed Nov. 28.

Baugh said he received the money as his campaign was beginning, then returned it Sept. 21, the day Laurie Campbell filed for the race in the northwest Orange County Assembly district.

The disclosure has brought sharp attacks from his Republican and Democratic campaign opponents, who say Baugh hid the contribution because he was involved in fostering the Campbell candidacy. Baugh has repeatedly refused to comment in the past week, but previously said he had nothing to do with Campbell entering the race and indicated they had only a passing acquaintance.

The two attended the same church in Newport Beach and worked at the same Sacramento law firm for a time in the late 1980s.

Shirley Carey, one of the Republican candidates who lost to Baugh in the race to succeed Allen, called the late disclosure “really sad, a total deception.”

“I think a check directly back and forth between Campbell’s husband and Scott Baugh shows a definite connection to her candidacy,” Carey said, adding that the district attorney’s office had talked to her again this week.

“The D.A. [is] telling people . . . that they are looking for connections beyond Laurie Campbell and Scott Baugh. I won’t be surprised if the spider web widens as they follow the money trail.”

State Democratic Party Chairman Bill Press is expected to call today for an investigation by the Fair Political Practices Commission in Sacramento.

The Baugh imbroglio has also spilled over into the battle over who should be Assembly speaker next year.

Backers of current Speaker Brian Setencich, a freshman Republican from Fresno, aren’t shy about suggesting that charges against Baugh would hurt the prospects of Setencich’s main challenger, Assembly GOP Leader Curt Pringle.

A conservative Republican from Garden Grove, Pringle helped oversee Republican strategy in the recall against Allen and the replacement election, and in the last month rounded up endorsements for Baugh.

Pringle has denied involvement with the Laurie Campbell matter.

But even as some of Setencich’s supporters try to paint Baugh’s predicament in a dark hue and hope that Pringle gets splattered, there are indications that some legislators are waiting to pass judgment.

“People like me just know the fringes of the [Baugh] issue,” said Assemblyman Bruce McPherson, a Santa Cruz Republican who is undecided about who should be speaker. “I think some people are concerned about what happened, but I don’t know if Curt Pringle is directly involved, as some would have you believe.”

In Orange County, the district attorney’s office is talking to a broad array of people involved in Republican politics, as well as the Baugh and recall campaigns, according to Republican politicians.

Baugh’s campaign treasurer, Dan Traxler, has already spoken to investigators, who served a search warrant on his office last week, said his lawyer, Robert Rinehart. And prosecutors are still seeking to interview Baugh and Laurie Campbell.

Baugh’s campaign finance reports previously had listed the $1,000 as a contribution from Baugh that was later returned to him. A revised version of that report subsequently listed the money as a loan from Baugh that was repaid, according to the report and a campaign source.

The final revision--filed election day--reported it as a contribution from Rick Campbell.

Traxler, the campaign treasurer who wrote the reports, has said the $1,000 stood out when he was reviewing campaign banking records while preparing the original report.

The $1,000 “appears as a deposit along with a $3,500 deposit and I could only find $2,500 in checks to correspond with it,” he said.

Traxler said he asked Baugh about the $1,000 portion of the deposit, which was made Aug. 23. “Scott remembers it as cash” he gave to the campaign, Traxler said.

Traxler on Sept. 21 returned the $1,000 to Baugh in cash, Rinehart said.

Traxler said Wednesday that he issued the separate revisions of the campaign finance reports as he became aware of the different circumstances. He said he worked on the second revision during the weekend before the Nov. 28 election, and filed it at 4:30 p.m. on election day because he did not learn all the details from Baugh until then.

“I reported it as soon as I was given the corrected information,” he said.

Warren reported from Orange County and Bailey from Sacramento.