City-hired investigators in Anaheim said they found deep levels of coordination between political action committees and former Mayor Harry Sidhu’s campaign in 2018, a possible violation of state election laws.
Sidhu beat current Mayor Ashleigh Aitken in that 2018 race. Investigators from the JL Group said in a report released on July 31 that they found that during that election cycle there was no firewall between the Sidhu campaign and several PACs, that should have closed off all contact with political campaigns.
“It’s very unusual because it’s totally illegal,” said Lee Fink, an attorney in Orange County who’s worked on election issues.
Investigators from the Laguna Niguel-based JL Group said former Core Strategic Group CEO Jeff Flint and former Anaheim Chamber of Commerce CEO Todd Ament ran many campaign meetings for Sidhu while also coordinating spending by independent expenditures.
JL Group investigators reviewed campaign forms and interviewed witnesses familiar with the PACs as part of their investigation into illegal coordination.
Independent expenditures are money that can be spent to advocate for the success or defeat of a campaign. They are not subject to contribution limits and must not have contact with campaigns.
Derek Humphrey, a political consultant who does work for Aitken (who lost the 2018 race by 478 votes) and several other Orange County politicians, said the coordination outlined by the JL Group’s report amounts to cheating in that election.
“I think for anybody who works on campaigns professionally, the revelations of this coordination are shocking,” Humphrey said.
Sidhu resigned in 2022 following the revelation he was under federal investigation. He has not been charged with a crime.
Flint, investigators allege, “essentially ran the PACs in Anaheim” and was involved with the Anaheim Orange County Hotel and Lodging Association PAC, Support Our Anaheim Resort – or SOAR – PAC and the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce PAC.
The 2018 campaign season in Anaheim drew lots of spending. The Anaheim Chamber of Commerce PAC, which the report said Ament took over as treasurer for in 2008, spent $237,422 in 2018 to support Sidhu’s campaign, and the Hotel and Lodging Association PAC raised another $204,550 to champion Sidhu and oppose Aitken. The Anaheim Chamber of Commerce CEO Laura Cunningham couldn’t be reached for comment.
SOAR, a primarily Disney-funded PAC, has spent more than $1 million per election cycle since 2018, according to the report.
Several of Flint’s companies were hired by PACs in Anaheim to engage in campaign activity, according to the report, including the Hotel and Lodging Association, SOAR and chamber PACs.
Ament’s attorneys, Andrew Selesnick and Joshua Robbins of Buchalter law firm, declined to comment. Neither Sidhu nor Flint could be reached for comment.
Both Flint and Ament coordinated the Sidhu campaign, investigators said. Chris Lowe, Disneyland’s former director of government relations who was a part of the Sidhu campaign, said to investigators Flint and Ament “were the big drivers of that campaign.”
Reforming campaigns
As Anaheim leaders start discussing reforms following the JL Group’s investigation release, Aitken has made it clear that campaign reform is on her mind.
“I would like to see the city consider as part of a longer-term plan putting more resources toward someone that is monitoring our elections,” Aitken said on Tuesday, “to making sure that the reports filed are accurate, to make sure people that are working on outside (independent expenditures) are not colluding with campaigns in violation of California state law.”
Aitken said the PAC coordination part of the JL Group report was “a tough read.”
The JL Group investigators recommended the city create an ethics officer/ombudsman to monitor political contributions, independent expenditures and other money spent on city races, as well as lobbying.
Fink said while the statute of limitations has likely passed for any 2018 violations, the California Fair Political Practices Commission could bring its own penalties if it were to open an investigation.
“The first thing (Anaheim) can do and should do is immediately ask the FPPC to investigate and seek penalties,” Fink said. “All of these are illegal contributions. They have jurisdiction and can bring administrative charges against these entities and individuals.”
A spokesperson for the FPPC said as of Monday it had not received any complaints, but its members are aware of the JL Group report.
Fink said if the city files a complaint, the FPPC has a 14-day window to determine whether it would go forward with an investigation. He also suggested that Anaheim could ask lawmakers in Sacramento to extend the statute of limitations for prosecuting potential misconduct.
Max Szabo, a Northern California political strategist, said PACs should know better than to coordinate with individual campaigns.
“It’s one of the cardinal sins of political consulting,” Szabo said. “There are contribution rules in place for a reason, to ensure elections are not bought by special interests.”
Szabo added: “If folks are willing to break the rules, they shouldn’t be playing the game.”
The JL Group investigators said in their report that it’s a possibility that PAC coordination occurred in Anaheim before and after the 2018 campaign cycle.
Matt Holder, who spoke to investigators and was a policy aide to former Councilmember Denise Barnes, called the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce the “tip of the spear” for all the influence from campaign contributions. He said in an interview with the Southern California News Group that business interests in Anaheim “are getting so much in return for all the money they are putting in.”
“To see the Chamber of Commerce PAC as kind of the fulcrum of all of these political contributions and receiving such a massive subsidy from the city, that is incredible,” Holder said.
