Former Rep. Kim, Convicted in 1997, May Run Again

Former U.S. Rep. Jay Kim, who pleaded guilty in 1997 to accepting more than $250,000 in illegal campaign contributions and spent two months in home detention, has taken out papers to run again for Congress--this time in San Bernardino County.

Kim, who in 1992 as a Republican from Diamond Bar became the first Korean American elected to Congress, paid the $1,367 filing fee this week and said he will decide by Friday’s deadline whether to return the papers and seek election in the 42nd District.

That seat was won in a special election last month by Democratic state Sen. Joe Baca, after the death of veteran incumbent U.S. Rep. George E. Brown Jr., also a Democrat, in July.

District voter registration heavily favors Democrats. If Kim runs, it will be a dramatic, unusual effort to regain his political credibility and add a potentially volatile element to the March primary election in the district, which runs along Interstate 10 from Ontario to San Bernardino.

Kim, 60, who lives in Virginia, acknowledged Friday that some may be shocked by his possible candidacy.

“Life is full of mystery,” he said. “I said to myself previously that I’d never again run, and now here I am. Maybe I’m crazy. I don’t know.”

He said his political consultant was polling voters in the Inland Empire district to assess the viability of his candidacy “and to see what people’s reaction is to me.”

“If it’s pathetically bad, I’ll have to reconsider,” he said. “But if it doesn’t look that bad, I may decide to run.”

Kim’s campaign committee was fined $170,000 by the U.S. Justice Department in the wake of a five-year probe. The violations were characterized by prosecutors as “the largest amount of criminal campaign finance violations ever committed by a member of Congress.”

The violations occurred in 1992, a time when Kim now says he was naive about campaign finance laws.

He said he hopes voters “will look at what I accomplished as a congressman. Never mind all these campaign violations. If they look at my accomplishments, I’ll be a viable candidate. I’m the only Republican who can beat Joe Baca.”

Baca (D-Rialto) reacted coolly to the idea: “I think we should have people running that are from the district,” Baca said.

Last month Baca won the seat by defeating Republican Elia Pirozzi, a real estate businessman, by an 8% margin. Baca got to the runoff after narrowly defeating Brown’s widow, Marta Macias Brown, in a hotly contested primary.

Kim pleaded guilty in 1997 to the misdemeanor campaign violations and escaped disciplinary action by the House Ethics Committee, but he spent two months confined to his home in Virginia in 1998, where his movements were electronically monitored. The detention prevented him from campaigning in his district for reelection in the GOP primary election, and he lost.

He was also sentenced to perform 200 hours of community service and pay a $5,000 fine, but he was not barred from seeking office.

Kim said Friday that he did not know the status of the $170,000 in fine payments due from his committee.

Kim said he decided not to seek reelection in the 41st District “because I fulfilled my campaign promises there and it’s in good shape, but when I drive into the 42nd, the difference is day and night.”

He said he would move to the district if he decides to run.

Among those shocked by the news was Jack Pitney, a Claremont McKenna College professor of government who previously worked for the Republican National Committee. Pitney said any Kim candidacy “is ridiculous. It’s kind of hard to fathom any logic to this effort.”

“He might win if nobody in the district ever picked up a newspaper,” Pitney said. “Wearing an electronic ankle bracelet is generally not a high qualification for office.”