He has pledged to run the state more efficiently if elected governor, but staff turmoil and lingering troubles with his inaugural fund are roiling the nascent campaign of state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner.
With the Republican primary still 13 months away, Poizner, a leading contender, is on his third campaign manager. Several top advisors have bowed out or taken diminished roles.
The instability in his campaign's upper ranks comes as the fund that Poizner set up to pay for his 2007 inaugural festivities is emerging as a potential millstone for the Silicon Valley mogul. The nonprofit Poizner Inaugural Fund spent more than $375,000, much of it on celebrations in San Jose and Sacramento.
But that included nearly $150,000 in bills that Poizner left unpaid, the bulk of them for more than two years, until The Times inquired about them. Poizner, who made a vast fortune as a pioneer in mobile-phone tracking devices, wrote personal checks last week to cover the balance.
"It's like anything else: You've got some clients who pay quicker than others," said Wayne Johnson, a political consultant whose firm recovered $38,625 from Poizner's inaugural fund last week for bills that it submitted in early 2007.
The fund's delays in paying its lawyers, accountants and consultants give rivals an easy line of attack against a multimillionaire candidate who vows to run a state with chronic fiscal troubles "as efficiently and effectively as possible."
Poizner said he had hoped to raise enough money to repay the vendors, but the fund reported only two donations over the last two years: $25,000 from the Sycuan Band of the Kumeyaay Nation and $50,000 from Mainstay Business Solutions, a firm owned by the Blue Lake Rancheria Tribe.
"It hasn't been the highest priority in the world, so now it's gotten old enough that I think it's not worth trying to raise money for anymore," Poizner said Tuesday in an interview.
Also problematic for Poizner, politically if not legally: The inaugural fund accepted two contributions from insurance donors despite his 2006 pledge to refuse the industry's money if he was elected commissioner. To take it "would be like refereeing a game while being on one of the teams' payroll," Poizner told guests at his inaugural luncheon.
But a day earlier, Poizner's inaugural fund accepted $5,000 from the California Assn. of Health Plans, a trade group whose members include Aetna, Blue Shield of California, CIGNA HealthCare of California Inc., and Kaiser Foundation Health Plan. Five weeks later, the fund accepted $1,000 from AIMS Acclamation Insurance.
