County Democrat Chief Averts Vote

The Central Committee of the Orange County Democratic Party chose not to put the fate of Party Chairman Jim Toledano to a vote Monday night, despite an earlier vote of no-confidence over his handling of a questionable $10,000 campaign contribution.

“I take full responsibility for the mistakes I made,” Toledano told the committee. “I take full responsibility for not getting on top of the problem soon enough.”

He added, “I am very sorry for this little hiccup in the road. Let’s treat it as a lesson learned, put it aside, and go on.”

After a 5-4 vote of no-confidence earlier this month, the Orange County Democratic Party’s executive committee had demanded that Toledano resign. The issue of his future was expected to be taken up by the larger decision-making body on Monday.

But Toledano said Monday that the matter is behind them. The issue, he said, is in the hands of a lawyer who specializes in election regulation and who will make recommendations to the Central Committee about how the party can rectify the situation.

But Central Committee member Mike Kaspar criticized the organization’s failure to do anything Monday night.

“It was a parliamentary shell game,” Kaspar said. “Toledano wrapped himself in the cloak of office, and used a parliamentary shell game to push this thing off. I wanted a hearing, a fair hearing. But this was more fluff, more smoke.”

The $10,000 at issue was donated by Debra Lee LaPrade of Paradise Valley, Ariz., older sister of Jim Prince, who campaigned unsuccessfully to represent the 46th Congressional District.

LaPrade said she called Toledano a week before the March 26 primary to say she had spent the legal limit on her brother’s campaign, but she wanted to spend more to promote voter awareness.

She said that Toledano, a lawyer, told her she could donate $10,000 to the party.

Toledano has maintained that LaPrade did not mention her previous donations nor that she was Prince’s sister.

Campaign statements filed with the federal Election Commission show that LaPrade, her husband and her three children, gave $10,000 to Prince last June--$1,000 per family member for his primary campaign, and another $1,000 each for the general election to follow, the maximum legal donations for individuals to a single candidate.

Toledano used LaPrade’s additional $10,000 to fund a red-white-and-blue mailer, drawn up on his home computer and sent to 30,000 homes in central Orange County urging support for Prince and Lou Correa, a Democrat running unopposed in the 69th Assembly District.

While conceding that he should have notified the party’s executive committee about the contribution, Toledano has called the controversy “a tempest in a teapot.”

The Federal Election Commission, which regulates congressional campaigns, stipulates that funds donated to a party committee and designated for specific candidates are usually counted against campaign contribution limits for those candidates.

Also, state law also requires that any campaign contribution greater than $1,000 be reported. But the Orange County Democratic Party failed to report LaPrade’s donation.

Toledano has argued that “slate” mailers, which list several candidates, are exempt from such FEC restrictions. But the FEC defines a slate mailer as one that promotes three or more candidates; Toledano’s mailer included two.