Fine Levied Over Labor’s Campaign Spending

The political arm of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor has agreed to pay a $2,000 fine for failing to properly disclose $31,280 it spent on an independent campaign supporting Alex Padilla’s candidacy for the 7th District seat on the Los Angeles City Council in April, officials said Monday.

The fine was levied by the Los Angeles Ethics Commission against the Los Angeles County Council on Political Education, widely known as COPE, which is the political arm of a federation serving as an umbrella group for 400 labor unions in the county.

Ethics Commission Executive Director Rebecca Avila cited “the importance of prompt notification of independent expenditures to the public and other candidates.”

Avila did not seek the maximum fine of three times the amount that COPE failed to report, citing the fact that the labor group did not have a history of such violations.

Fabian Nunez, the political director for COPE, told investigators that the delay in reporting was unintentional and based on a misreading of the ethics laws.

Corinne Sanchez, Padilla’s opponent in the runoff election, said the one-week delay in reporting the spending disguised the involvement of the County Federation of Labor at a crucial time in the election when northeast Valley residents needed to know the extent of involvement by the downtown special interest group.

“I said it during the election and I still feel strongly that the voters need to have that information disclosed,” said Sanchez, who heads the social-service group El Proyecto del Barrio.

An independent expenditure campaign must report to the Ethics Commission within 24 hours of spending more than $1,000 on behalf of a city candidate.

COPE spent the $31,280 for pro-Padilla mailers and door hangers on March 29, two weeks before the April 13 primary election, but did not report it to the Ethics Commission until April 6. Labor leaders said that they did not mail and distribute the material until March 30 through April 5, and that they had read the law to require that the spending be disclosed only when all campaign expenditures are reported.

“There clearly was no history of wrongdoing and no intention of wrongdoing,” Nunez said in an interview Monday.

Nunez also noted that all of the mail sent out properly disclosed that it was paid for by COPE.

Nunez said the federation still will probably go to the Ethics Commission in the future and seek to clarify the law to exempt unions from such disclosures.

COPE ended up spending about $100,000 in support of Padilla, whom it identified as the candidate most sympathetic to labor.

Sanchez objected at the time, saying she too supported unions and that the County Federation was a downtown special interest group inappropriately attempting to influence a local council election in the northeast San Fernando Valley.

Padilla won the June runoff election, receiving twice the votes cast for Sanchez.

Former San Fernando Mayor Raul Godinez, a candidate in the primary, complained at the time about the union disclosure issue, but said Monday that Padilla won by such a large margin that it is unlikely that the failure to disclose had any effect on the election outcome.