Southeast : Campaign Mailers Probed

U.S. Postal Service officials plan to investigate whether all the leaflets from 38th Congressional District candidate Peter Mathews were actually delivered during his unsuccessful 1994 campaign against Rep. Steve Horn (R-Long Beach).

Mathews, who plans to challenge Horn again in November, said numerous supporters have notified him that they received few if any of the various packets he mailed during his 1994 campaign. Many of them were concerned because their campaign contributions had helped pay for the mailers, Mathews said.

A Postal Service inspector confirmed that the investigation was about to begin. He would not comment on specifics of the case, however, categorizing it as a routine matter.

Postal records show that Mathews mailed 18 batches of campaign material late in the race for a total of 553,519 leaflets. The mailings were to be sent across the district, in which 52% of the voters were registered Democrats.

Mathews, a teacher at Cypress College, said he was accusing no one of mail fraud until the investigation was complete. However, he said, he plans to rely less on mailers this year by greeting voters door-to-door.

“We believe we may have to carry the mail ourselves to the voters,” he said at his Long Beach campaign headquarters Tuesday.