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Assemblyman Evan Low’s continuing disregard for the integrity of our election process reinforces the case for why former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo is the best candidate for Congress.
Low and Liccardo are locked in a runoff to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo in the 16th Congressional District, encompassing parts of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.
Developments since the primary election, including a new controversy this month, have not only buttressed the case that Liccardo is the far superior pick, they have also called into question whether Low has the ethical backbone needed for the job.
As we noted in our February endorsement of Liccardo, he is well-prepared, willing to work in a bipartisan fashion, able to hit the ground running and likely to earn the respect of congressional colleagues.
In his 16 years as a member of the San Jose City Council and then as the city’s mayor, he demonstrated indefatigable energy and a long string of policy accomplishments pertaining to the environment, housing and gun regulations.
Liccardo helped lead efforts to strengthen police oversight and ended the city’s wars with its Police Department over public employee pension costs, establishing retirement system stability while bolstering law enforcement’s badly depleted ranks.
In contrast, Low, who has served effectively in the state Legislature for nearly 10 years, struggled to answer questions about issues that overlap the state and federal government, including the cost of California’s high-speed rail and water policy affecting the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
Going into the March primary, we were clear on our choice. Developments since have fortified our recommendation that voters should elect Liccardo in the Nov. 5 election.
Recall that after the March primary ended with Low in an amazing tie for second place, he tried to stop a recount because it didn’t favor his strategy of a three-way runoff. For him, ballot-count accuracy took a back seat to his self-serving political objectives.
Fortunately for our election process, the recount proceeded. It showed Low solely the second-place finisher, putting him in the runoff with Liccardo, who finished first in the primary.
Now, in the final weeks of the campaign, with independent polling showing Liccardo with a sizable lead, Low has resorted to using, apparently illegally, $590,000 of his state campaign money on television advertising for his federal congressional race.
Defend the Vote, a political action committee working to protect democracy and the election process, has filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging Low has broken federal campaign rules. Defend the Vote backed Liccardo’s campaign after Low attempted to block the recount.
Low’s lawyer counters that the video ad is not for his congressional campaign but is merely Low communicating with his Assembly district constituents about his legislative record.
Lawyers for the two sides might someday fight it out before the election commission, but not before the Nov. 5 election.
For us, the claim that Low’s merely trying to communicate with his Assembly constituents doesn’t pass the smell test. Rather than costly television advertising, Low could have used a traditional mailer sent to voters if he truly wanted to reach his Assembly constituents. But that wouldn’t serve his congressional campaign objectives.
That’s because there’s almost no overlap between his current Assembly district, which includes Santa Clara, Cupertino, Sunnyvale and part of San Jose, and the congressional district where he’s now campaigning, which wraps around the Assembly district and stretches up the Peninsula.
The fight over the legality of the expenditures isn’t merely some archaic dispute about campaign finance laws. It matters greatly if we don’t want our federal campaign system polluted by state political money.
Low raised the money in question under California law for a state Assembly campaign committee. Federal law prohibits him from transferring it to his congressional campaign. And with good reason.
The state permits corporations and labor unions to contribute to campaigns; federal law does not. And individual campaign contributions are significantly higher for state candidates than for congressional candidates.
Low isn’t trying to hide what he’s doing. He disclosed the spending on a form for federal campaign disbursements. His attorney says that was done to be fully transparent and that the form makes clear that the ad is an Assembly constituent communication.
We know of no time during his 10 years in the Assembly that Low previously bought television time to communicate with constituents. We asked his campaign if he ever had but received no response.
To be sure, rulings by the FEC have permitted state officeholders running for federal office to use state campaign money in some cases to communicate with their constituents. Low’s lawyer cites a 2022 FEC case involving Kevin Mullin, then a Peninsula assemblyman running for Congress.
In that case, the commission said Mullin’s December 2021 holiday card and a separate postcard listing legislative accomplishments, both paid for by his state campaign committee, were permissible.
But the Mullin case and Low’s are drastically different: Mullin sent out the cards more than five months before the federal election, not within weeks of it. And Mullin’s case involved mailers that went directly to his Assembly constituents, not television ads splayed across the entire Bay Area.
It was outrageous that Low last spring wanted to block a recount after the first primary results showed a tie vote. Now he’s flouting federal campaign spending rules with a major, last-minute television campaign.
In both cases, he’s putting political self-interest ahead of campaign integrity. That’s not the sort of representative we need in Washington.
