The California Fair Political Practices Commission, or FPPC, is continuing to investigate the proponents of the efforts to recall three members of the Shasta County Board of Supervisors.
The FPPC is investigating allegations that several organizations tied to the recall effort violated election laws over finance and advertisement disclosure. The organizations have also been separately investigated by the Shasta County District Attorney’s Office.
NSPR's Alec Stutson spoke with Ann Ravel, former chair of the FPPC, about the organization’s role and how the investigation might play out.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Interview Highlights:
On the purpose and operation of the FPPC
The FPPC is the state commission that was enacted by the will of the voters. It has two main purposes: One of them relates to ethics and conflicts of interests and oversight over those related to public officials in California. And the other one has to do with oversight over campaigns and campaign finance issues. And they generally look at issues of disclosure, but there's other rules that are applicable to those campaigns as well. And they enforce those rules.
On the legal authority of the FPPC
The FPPC is an administrative agency. So they have civil authority, they can fine individuals and impose sanctions that are primarily monetary sanctions against candidate committees.
On the usual length of FPPC investigations
It is often the case that investigations can take as long as a year, unfortunately. So it's hard to estimate. I know that some of them can take longer as well. A lot of it depends on what kind of an investigation it is. I know a number of people who have been involved with cases that have taken as long as two or three years. I hope that in a case that arises prior to the elections such as this, that they would adhere to that length of 120 days."
On what happens if a violation is found, but the recall election has already taken place
If it's a major problem that shows that the electoral process was inappropriate, then it is possible that the Secretary of State could make a determination to ask that the recall be found to be inappropriate and that they would have to try again.
On how the separate District Attorney investigation relates to the recall efforts
The Secretary of State has the ability based on the information provided by the District Attorney and their investigation, as well as potentially an independent investigation by the Secretary of State, that the recall cannot go forward because too many signatures have been invalidated. Therefore, the threshold has not been reached.