The group helped pay for Nunez and his wife, a nurse and consultant, to travel in Brazil, Argentina and Chile, where they and other lawmakers, lobbyists and the governor's chief of staff studied technologies to reduce global warming.
Similarly, the tax-exempt William C. Velasquez Institute, a policy think tank focused on Latino issues, paid $6,169 toward Nunez's 2005 trip to France and Sweden to study universal preschool. The institute also helped finance Nunez's trip to France in April to study high-speed rail, according to institute President Antonio Gonzalez.
Nunez, a former union organizer, travels and dines much more comfortably with campaign funds than he could on the taxpayers' dime. The state limits employees to $6 for breakfast, $10 for lunch and $18 for dinner when they are traveling on business in California. Hotel reimbursement ranges from $84 to $140 per night plus tax, depending upon location.
Luxurious living is incompatible with Nunez's image as a champion of working people, Heller said: "Here's a guy who gives a lot of lip service to speaking for the little guy, but he's living like a Goliath."
And "when his campaigns are funding it, you have to wonder: Who does he owe for this lifestyle?" Heller said. "That's the problem."
The campaign filings of Nunez's legislative counterpart, Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland), show no overseas travel over the last three years and few "meetings" costing more than a few hundred dollars.
Much of the spending from the "Taxpayers for Perata" fund are described as gifts for colleagues or constituents, including a $490 "gift for staff member" at the Claremont Resort and Spa in Berkeley.
Perata also reports spending $3,249 at an Apple store for "holiday gifts for colleagues," $799 at Montclair Village Wine shop for an office "election party" and $2,665 for a staff party at À Côté Restaurant in Oakland.
For decades in California, lawmakers were permitted to use campaign funds for personal benefit, said Robert Stern, president of the nonprofit Center for Governmental Studies in Los Angeles and former general counsel for the Fair Political Practices Commission.
They could, for example, buy a car with political donations and pocket any remaining contributions when they left office. The Legislature, under pressure from the Fair Political Practices Commission, passed laws in 1982 barring those practices and further restricting the use of campaign funds, Stern said.
The commission is responsible for enforcing those laws and is assisted by the Franchise Tax Board, which audits 30 randomly chosen lawmakers every two years. Nunez is among those being audited this year, and a report is due by February.
The commission has taken action against fewer than a dozen politicians for misuse of campaign funds. Among them is Charles Calderon, a Montebello Democrat who served in the Assembly in the 1980s, the Senate in the 1990s and is now in his second Assembly stint.
Calderon has been fined by the Fair Political Practices Commission a total of $33,000 for numerous violations, including using campaign funds to pay for a Lake Tahoe family vacation, limousine rental, clothes for his wife, modeling photos, a costumed entertainer and a tennis outfit.
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nancy.vogel@latimes.com
