Mikels Assails McClintock on Spending

Taking the offensive in her state Senate primary campaign, Ventura County Supervisor Judy Mikels on Friday declared Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Northridge) a hypocrite who postures as a taxpayer advocate but acts as a spendthrift of public money.

Mikels, who trails McClintock badly in fund-raising, accused the veteran assemblyman of allowing his state staff to travel to political events outside his 38th District and charging taxpayers for the trips.

She also maintained that McClintock, though living only a few miles from the Capitol, collects more per diem expense money than nearly all other Assembly members. She also accused him of using state mailing privileges to send a political flier to potential voters.

Mikels said she was attacking McClintock because he held a press conference Thursday to announce support from the state’s three leading grass-roots taxpayer associations.

“So this is a perfect time to let them know that their poster boy is not as careful with public money as he says he is. I’m saying he’s a hypocrite,” Mikels said. “His hypocrisy drives me up a wall. He can’t wait to get everybody off of welfare, but he’s the first one to take the taxpayers’ money.”

McClintock said Mikels’ attack is just more of the same from a desperate opponent with little backing and little chance to capture the Republican nomination in the 19th Senate District, which covers most of Ventura County and parts of the San Fernando and Santa Clarita valleys. Current Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) is retiring because of term limits.

“I’ve been accused of many things in my time, but nobody’s ever questioned my taxpayer credentials,” McClintock responded. “It’s simply not true.”

McClintock said Mikels was trailing him so badly in his recent poll, at 42% to 9%, that she is grasping at straws. He said he has spent his career since being elected to the Assembly in 1982 fighting government waste and trying to cut taxes.

“I’ve spent my whole life fighting intrusive government,” he said.

In recent weeks, Mikels has blasted McClintock as a far-right ideologue out of step with his district. She has called him a carpetbagger and hypocrite, because he lives with his family in a Sacramento suburb--not the one-bedroom apartment he claims as a legal residence--then collects $25,000 a year in taxpayer subsidies for room and board back in his San Fernando Valley district.

Friday, she went further, insisting that McClintock receives more per diem reimbursement expense money than the vast majority of his colleagues. State documents provided by Mikels show that for the 1996-97 fiscal year, McClintock received $25,295 in such reimbursement. But records also showed that while many received a bit less, a number of his colleagues received the same amount.

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McClintock said he receives the full allotment of per diem money--now $121 a day--because he is never absent, and reimbursement increases with attendance.

“So she’s attacking me for having perfect attendance,” he said.

Mikels also accused McClintock of improperly blurring the lines between official activities of his Assembly office and his political campaign. McClintock used staffers working on state time for campaign purposes, and then they received state mileage reimbursement for those trips, she said.

The assemblyman sent staff aides out of his 38th District to such events as Chamber of Commerce meetings in Camarillo and Santa Clarita, a jet ski association meeting in Ventura, a Women’s Federation meeting in Ojai and a Salvation Army facility opening and Explorer Scout graduation in Oxnard, she said.

“There’s nothing wrong with him sending his staff out of district to do something that’s actually legislative work,” she said. “But to send them to Chamber of Commerce meetings and to a ribbon-cutting in Oxnard right around campaign time, that’s hypocritical.”

McClintock said he sends his staff all over the state to attend meetings, because he is involved in many statewide issues. He sends staffers to Ventura County meetings out of his district, but only if he is invited by an organization or one of its members.

“We get invitations all the time,” he said. “We are often asked to give legislative updates on issues of importance in California.”

He said he wanted to attend the Jet Ski Assn. meeting himself, because he is vice chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee that reviews laws related to harbors.

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As for Mikels’ allegation that he mailed a political flier at state expense, he said the document updated constituents on key transportation issues, such as the need to abolish car license taxes and the need to eliminate freeway diamond lanes. Like other Assembly members, he said he is given $240,000 a year to staff his office and pay for supplies and mailings. He said he always returns a surplus at year-end.

Mikels insists the mailer was political.

“This color mailer looks just like a campaign brochure,” she said. “On the outside it says, ‘Stop the Gridlock,’ and his name is right there on the front. Nobody else passes themselves off as a taxpayer advocate and then does this kind of thing.”

McClintock said Mikels, who has criticized him for not being in touch with his constituents, can’t have it both ways.

“Now she’s accusing me of using a mailing to stay in touch,” he said.

His brochure, like all of those mailed by Assembly members, required Assembly Rules Committee approval before it could be distributed, he said.