Political Contributions

Democrat Barbara Boxer outdistanced her Republican challengers in raising money during the first quarter of the year, and her two leading GOP would-be opponents were nearly tied in income over the period, according to financial reports. Boxer, a three-term incumbent who faces no serious primary challenge but is anticipating her toughest general election battle yet, raised $2.4 million in the first three months of 2010. She now has $8.7 million on hand, and is due to raise more next week with a visit from President Obama.

Republican Meg Whitman's unprecedented spending spree in the race for governor has rocketed her into a narrow lead against Democrat Jerry Brown, while incumbent U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) is holding her own as a trio of little-known GOP candidates vies to challenge her, a new Los Angeles Times/USC poll has found. Whitman, who gave her campaign a record-breaking $39 million to finance a blistering pace of recent television advertising, carried 44% of voters to Brown's 41%. The campaign by Brown, the former governor and current attorney general, has been the antithesis of Whitman's, operating under the radar except for a brief burst of publicity in early March when he announced his intention to run. In her first bid for elective office, Whitman was easily outdistancing her fellow Republican, Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, with a 40-point lead in the poll as they move toward the June primary.

FBI agents arrested a Commerce councilman early Thursday after a grand jury indicted him and two family members for allegedly trying to hide illegal campaign contributions. Robert Fierro, 39, the mayor pro tem of the industrial suburb, is also charged with telling a friend to lie to the FBI. Fierro's sister-in-law and campaign treasurer, Ana Perez, was charged with lying to the grand jury. Along with the politician's wife, Linda Fierro, 36, she was charged with witness tampering.

Federal judges handed down split verdicts on Friday in two separate decisions on campaign fundraising, ruling that the Republican National Committee and other political parties may not seek unlimited contributions from wealthy donors, but independent groups may do so. The rulings came in a pair of cases testing the legal limits on money in politics. The RNC and several conservative groups have been filing suits in recent years challenging money limits on free-speech grounds, confident the Supreme Court agrees with their view.

Republican Meg Whitman spent $27 million on her campaign for governor in the first 11 weeks of the year, setting a record-shattering pace with a prime-time television ad blitz to introduce herself to voters and attack her GOP opponent, according to a disclosure statement she filed Monday. Whitman, the billionaire ex-chief of EBay, has spent $46 million since joining the race early last year, seven times more than either of her main rivals. Steve Poizner, the Republican state insurance commissioner, has been punished incessantly by Whitman's "Can't Trust Steve" ads on shows such as "American Idol," and lagged nearly 50 points behind her in last week's Field Poll.

Virginia consumer-protection officials have warned the wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas that her advocacy group is improperly soliciting contributions in the state. In a letter to Virginia Thomas on Thursday, the state Office of Consumer Affairs directed Liberty Central Inc. to the Virginia law that requires groups to register with the office or request an exemption before seeking donations for a charitable purpose. Liberty Central is a Virginia-based group soliciting contributions online and is not registered or exempt, said Michael Wright, the manager of regulatory programs at the Office of Consumer Affairs, a branch of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

Faced with the daunting prospect of being significantly outspent by his likely Republican opponent, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown spoke to a labor group Tuesday and urged it to go on the offensive. "We're going to attack whenever we can, but I'd rather have you attack," Brown said at a gathering of the California delegation of the Laborers' International Union of North America in Sacramento. "I'd rather be the nice guy in this race. We'll leave [the attacks] to . . . the Democratic Party and others."

A fight has split backers of a November ballot initiative to suspend California's 2006 global warming law. "Big money interests have come in and shut out the people," said Ted Costa, chief executive of the Sacramento-based anti-tax organization People's Advocate, one of the initiative's original sponsors. Costa, whose populist group has promoted conservative ballot propositions for more than two decades, had drafted the initiative along with Assemblyman Dan Logue (R-Marysville)

Fifteen special interest groups including casino operators, drug firms and unions for teachers and public employees spent more than $1 billion in the last decade trying to influence California voters and officials, the state's political watchdog agency reported Wednesday. The money from the top 15 spenders went to lobbying, contributions to state politicians, and campaigns for ballot measures that advanced the groups' agendas, according to the report by the state Fair Political Practices Commission.

Supporters of incoming Assembly Speaker John Pérez say his rapid climb from rank-and-file lawmaker to one of the most powerful offices in the state is due to his intellectual prowess and unwavering commitment to the working poor. But Pérez, a Democrat who was chosen as speaker in December and will be sworn in Monday, has something that left-leaning former labor leaders and freshman lawmakers usually lack: a financial pipeline to billionaire developers and white-shoe investors who rank among the most politically active power brokers in the state.