Party crashing
Young Dems accuse Wagner of ethics violation
By Bill Lascher 07/05/2007
Fissures emerged in Ventura County Democratic circles last week after a two-time congressional candidate was accused of unethical behavior.
At issue is an email released June 24 by Brett Wagner two days before voter registration drive. The event was organized by the Young Progressive Democrats (YPD) of Ventura County and the Central Coast chapter of the Vote Blue Committee, a political action committee attempting to raise Democratic voter registration in the Tri-Counties. Wagner, a candidate for the 24th District Congressional seat held by Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley), sent an email inviting voters to join the registration drive and included a link asking for donations to his congressional campaign (Wagner also sought the seat in 2004 and 2006).
But organizers of the event said Wagner improperly said the event was “in cooperation” with his campaign without authorization from either of the sponsoring organizations.
“We will not support candidates that make false claims or corrupt our purpose,” YPD President Heather Schmidt said in a press release. “Young democrats don’t condone that shade of ethical behavior.”
Wagner refused to be interviewed by the VC Reporter on the matter. In an email explaining his refusal, he said that he simply wanted to encourage supporters to participate in the registration drive.
“I now realize that rather than using the wording ‘in cooperation with...’ I probably should have instead said ‘in the spirit of cooperation with...’,\" Wagner said in the email.
Wagner said he didn’t understand the concern for his asking for contributions in his email, and that he includes an “ask” in every one of his emails.
In an interview with the VC Reporter, Schmidt said Wagner never contacted her organization to see whether or not it was okay for him to include the information.
“First of all, our organization doesn’t even endorse candidates,” Schmidt said. “We also have in our bylines that we don’t co-sponsor events.”
When contacted by phone, a representative of the Vote Blue Committee told the VC Reporter that she could not comment for this story and referred all calls to the committee’s lawyer, Bob Galloway, an attorney at Ventura’s Ferguson Case Orr Patterson LLP. Galloway didn’t return phone calls seeking comment for this story.
Jill Martinez, who beat Wagner to run as the Democratic candidate for the seat and plans to run again in 2008, did participate in the event. She said she attended as an individual, did not announce her participation beforehand, and only talked about her candidacy when asked about it.
After she sent YPD’s press release, Schmidt said neither she nor anyone else in the organization received a response from Wagner. Instead, Wagner posted a response on a blog called Ojai Post.
“He sent a response accusing us of causing infighting,” Schmidt said. “That’s not really what we’re trying to do. If anyone was causing the infighting it was him.”
In his email to the VC Reporter, Wagner offered a lesson for Schmidt.
“My advice to young people like Heather who want to make a contribution to the political process but wind up instead making a big deal out of something like this: Take a step back,” he said. “Take a deep breath ... There are a lot of important things going on in our country and the world right now — things deserving of our limited time and attention — and this isn't one of them.\"
But Schmidt said Wagner’s behavior shouldn’t be dismissed.
“I personally think it’s a concern,” she said. “We obviously don’t want to make it look like we’re trying to attack other Democrats. This was 100 percent just about saying listen, this wasn’t authorized by us.”
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