California GOP lodges complaint against Lois Capps
November 5, 2012
The chairman of the California Republican Party filed an ethics complaint against Congresswoman Lois Capps that requests an investigation into whether she violated House rules by renting a room to a staff member and failing to report it on financial disclosures and tax returns. [SLOTribune]
“The public record makes clear that Rep. Capps failed to disclose to Congress and to the IRS a financial transactional relationship with someone who was receiving both campaign and federal dollars,” the state Republican Party said in a news release.
Chair Tom Del Beccaro sent a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics requesting the investigation.
“A closer look at Rep. Capps’ FEC campaign financial reports reveal a troubling discrepancy that speaks to whether or not the failure to report the rental income was a deliberate effort to conceal or a reporting oversight,” the complaint states.
However, a spokesman for Capps’ campaign told the Tribune on Saturday that the House Committee on Ethics had previously informed the congresswoman that there was no violation.
“We realize it’s the final weekend so we were expecting a desperate act from Mr. (Abel) Maldonado, who is trying to escape responsibility for his $4.2 million in back taxes and still hasn’t released his tax returns as he promised,” Capps’ spokesman Jeff Millman said to the Tribune.
Capps accountant discovered the error in 2006 and reported to the House. However, the error wasn’t corrected on her tax returns until Capps began placing her returns online as part of her challenge to her competitor Abel Maldonado. The unreported income from 2001 through 2005 was paid by one of Capps’ congressional staffers who rented a room in the congresswoman’s house.
The California Republican Party complaint comes two days after the California Democratic Party called for an investigation into whether Maldonado claimed money spent on two 2007 campaign fund-raising events were write offs for his family’s agriculture business.
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