Mikels Assails McClintock on Spending Public Money

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.

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 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. 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. 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.

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McClintock said he sends his staff all over the state to attend meetings, because he is involved in many statewide issues.

As for Mikels’ allegation that he mailed a political flier at state expense, he said the document, like all of those mailed by Assembly members, required Assembly Rules Committee approval before it could be distributed.