SACRAMENTO — The arrest of a front-runner in the race for California secretary of state on corruption charges has made ethics a key issue for the seven candidates still in the contest.
State Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) quit the race after his arrest last month on charges of taking payments in exchange for official favors and conspiring to illegally traffic in firearms. He has pleaded not guilty.
As the remaining candidates focus on the best way to clean up Sacramento, Yee's stumble has thrown the June primary competition wide open.
AT A GLANCE: Candidates for secretary of state
Yee, whose name will remain on the ballot, was the second-best-financed candidate for the state's top elections job. The contestant with the most money, state Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima), is favored to grab at least one of the two runoff slots for November.
"With Yee out of the picture, it definitely opens up the race more to the other candidates," said Tony Quinn, an editor of the nonpartisan California Target Book, which handicaps political races.
A recent Field Poll showed Padilla running second to Republican public policy specialist Pete Peterson, whose last quarterly disclosure report showed less than $2,000 in his campaign fund.
The secretary of state, with nearly 500 employees, oversees federal and state elections in California, maintains the public databases that disclose campaign contributions and lobbyist spending, and processes and maintains records related to corporations and other business entities.
Incumbent Debra Bowen, a Democrat, is prevented by term limits from running for reelection.
Besides Padilla, the other Democrats in the race are Derek Cressman, former vice president of the watchdog group Common Cause, and Jeffrey H. Drobman, a computer scientist and engineer.
There are two Republican candidates: Roy Allmond, a program technician in the secretary of state's office, and Peterson, executive director of the Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership, a think tank at Pepperdine University.
David Curtis, a designer in an architectural studio, is a Green Party candidate. Dan Schnur, on leave as director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC, is a "no party preference" candidate.
Padilla has a large advantage in campaign fundraising, having brought in $1.6 million, according to his required filings with the state. Cressman is a distant second in campaign cash, having raised $390,000 and lent himself $100,000.
All of the candidates say the state must upgrade the computer systems that register businesses and tell the public who contributes money to which politicians.
But they have clashed over what to do about the apparent prevalence of corruption in the Capitol as well as over how to handle Yee and Democratic Sens. Ronald S. Calderon and Roderick Wright, who are facing their own criminal charges.
Cressman and Schnur have criticized Padilla for voting last month to impose paid suspensions on the three. Schnur and Cressman said they should have been permanently expelled.
In voting for suspensions, Padilla noted that Yee and Calderon have not yet had their day in court. But he has called on all three lawmakers to resign.
As he has campaigned for secretary of state, Padilla has proposed a blackout on political fundraising for more than three months during the end of each legislative session. That's when special interests seeking favorable votes on bills also flood legislators with campaign cash. The Legislature has not yet voted on his proposal.
Like most lawmakers, Padilla, 41, said fundraising has nothing to do with how he votes on bills.
"But the public perception has gotten to the point where it needs to be addressed," he said. "The perception is that fundraising activity has an undue influence on how decisions are made in the Capitol."
