County's patronage program a royal mess

A gold brick

13 Aug 2005 // A gold brick – the Easy Money award – to Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham for his letter to campaign contributors, asking them if they mind greatly if he uses their money to pay for his legal expenses, a matter of some concern to the congressman.

If donors do object, he said he would send their money to the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee.

Now for one, it's highly unlikely that Mitchell Wade, the defense contractor who contributed lavishly to Cunningham's campaign as well as buying his friend's Del Mar Heights house at a $700,000 loss and furnished him with a houseboat, would object to the conversion.

The same could be said of Cunningham's large corporate contributors, many of whom are in the defense industry.

Meanwhile, Cunningham is going through the motion of asking for the blessing of the Federal Election Committee, which has a history of allowing embattled politicians to transform campaign warchests into defense funds.

Hoping to persuade the FEC to draw a hard line, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal-leaning watchdog group, is urging the commission to withhold its blessing until it's known what indictments, if any, will be handed down.

If, for example, Cunningham is charged with bribery that's unrelated to campaigning, then he should not be using any campaign funds to defend himself, the watchdog contends.