House candidate Carr’s campaign drops ball on required finance filing

Gang prosecutor Elan S. Carr, a Republican vying this fall to succeed retiring Rep. Henry A. Waxman, failed for weeks to file a required financial disclosure report, House Ethics Committee records showed.

Carr’s campaign filed the report Thursday morning, after a Times reporter asked earlier this week about why it appeared to be missing.

John S. Thomas, Carr’s chief strategist, said the task of submitting the report “had been delegated to a campaign intern last March.” But, he added, the intern had “lost track of the project” due to Carr’s being out of the country then “to help train Jewish students in the UK to combat anti-Israel propaganda on their college campuses.”

House Ethics rules require that candidates for congressional seats file forms disclosing their sources of income and other personal financial information to avoid conflicts of interest.

The reports are due within 30 days of a candidate’s raising or spending $5,000 on the campaign. According to Carr’s campaign finance reports to the Federal Election Commission, he passed that mark around Feb. 11.

The rules state that “an individual who files a report more than 30 days after it is due must pay a late filing fee of $200, unless the committee waives the fee in exceptional circumstances.”

Carr faces state Sen. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) this fall for the seat in the 33rd District, where Democrats hold a 43.5% to 26.9% registration edge over Republicans.

Lieu submitted his financial disclosure report on March 5, records at clerk.house.gov show. His campaign on Thursday declined to comment on Carr’s tardiness in filing.

However, John Burton, chairman of the California Democratic Party, had this to say: “There’s no excuse for Elan Carr failing to file this basic disclosure. He’s a prosecutor, yet he failed to follow the rules, and filing is his responsibility--not an intern’s.”

“If he can’t handle this,” Burton said,” how is he going to handle being a member of Congress?”

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