FPPC Fines Kathleen Brown, Campaign Committee $24,000

Former state Treasurer Kathleen Brown and her campaign committee were fined $24,000 Thursday for failing to disclose more than $1.2 million in contributions toward her 1994 bid for governor.

The state Fair Political Practices Commission also fined a San Diego County trash magnate and one of his companies $249,500 for funneling $21,400 in campaign donations to local candidates through employees, employees’ spouses and a relative.

The five-member panel, which is the state’s campaign law watchdog, approved both fines by unanimous votes.

The complaint against Brown included failing to disclose more than $856,000 in indirect contributions from the Democratic State Central Committee, used in part to send voters a letter from Hillary Rodham Clinton urging support for Brown and U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Brown, who lost to Republican Pete Wilson, could have been fined a maximum of $34,000. But the commission’s staff said there were good reasons to impose the lower penalty, including the fact that the violations involved only about 7% of the funds raised by Brown and that there was no evidence that the violations were intentional.

The fine imposed on James Mashburn and Refuse Services Inc. was the fourth-largest ever levied by the commission for laundering campaign funds.

Brown and Mashburn signed stipulations admitting the violations and agreeing to pay the fines.

According to the commission, Mashburn and Refuse Services were the source of 133 contributions made to San Diego-area candidates between March 1992 and June 1995.

Many of the donations went to candidates in cities that had trash hauling contracts with Mashburn’s companies, but there was no evidence that any of the candidates knew Mashburn was the true donor, the commission said.