The California gubernatorial candidate spent a lot of money on a trip to Vienna – with her husband’s company

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A California Democrat vying to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom may have run afoul of state law by sending thousands of campaign dollars to a company owned by her husband.

Toni Atkins, the powerful former legislative leader from San Diego, paid $22,500 to the Global Policy Leadership Academy, where her longtime husband, Jennifer LeSar, is the company’s CEO and sole shareholder, according to disclosures reviewed by POLITICO. Atkins described the money as a trip to Vienna, Austria, in 2022.

California law prohibits officeholders from using campaign funds for personal purposes, such as giving to a spouse or domestic partner, experts said. The Global Policy Leadership Academy is part of a portfolio of affordable housing and economic development companies owned by LeSar.

Anna Ravelformer chairman of both the Federal Election Commission and California’s Fair Political Practices Commission — the campaign finance watchdog organizations in Washington and Sacramento — told POLITICO that the amount Atkins sent to the Global Policy Leadership Academy, a for-profit company, is not legal.

Any money given from campaign funds must be reasonably — and directly — related to a political, legislative or administrative purpose, she said. “This is not the case at the Global Policy Leadership Academy,” Ravel said after reviewing Atkins’ payment.

A spokesperson for the Atkins campaign disputed Ravel’s interpretation, claiming the senator had done nothing wrong. Evan Westrup said in a statement to POLITICO that the seminar was intended to provide leaders, policymakers and practitioners with insight into proven international models and approaches for addressing the housing and homelessness crises.

LeSar did not receive any direct compensation for Atkins’ participation in the Vienna seminar, Westrup said, adding that “there was no net financial benefit from the seminar to GPLA or the senator’s wife.”

“The Senator remains committed to avoiding conflict – or even the perception of conflict – and as such has requested a full review of this case by her attorneys, who concluded that the cited statute … is not applicable,” said Westrup.

He said the campaign money Atkins sent to the Global Policy Leadership Academy covered seminar costs for each participant, including transportation, lodging, meals, meeting space and programming costs.

“The fact that you cite information made public in public documents about the Senator’s participation in this particular seminar reflects her longstanding and ongoing commitment, not only to transparency, but also to making housing more affordable for California residents,” Westrup said.

Westrup said Atkins instructed her attorneys to proactively contact the FPPC to “communicate these facts” after POLITICO inquired about the charges. He said Atkins also offered her “full cooperation in resolving the matter in the event that the FPPC has a different view of the statute.”

POLITICO began scrutinizing Atkins’ campaign spending earlier this year after she entered the race to become California’s first woman and LGBTQ+ governor. News outlets have been investigating potential conflicts between the top lawmaker and her adviser husband for more than a decade. But the money from Atkins’ campaign committee to the LeSar company is, according to Ravel’s interpretation, the first concrete example of an allegedly improper payment.

Atkins rose through the political ranks, from San Diego City Hall, where she served on the council, to the most powerful legislative positions in Sacramento – Senate president, pro tem and speaker of the Assembly – positions that not only helped her in setting the affordable housing spending agenda, but also endeared her. her to many of the state’s most generous donors.

The Los Angeles Times tracked the increase among government agencies, developers, nonprofits and other LeSar customers over the years for a 2019 story based on a review of Atkins’ economic disclosure forms and other documents. Both Atkins and LeSar have repeatedly pushed back against potential conflict, with Atkins telling the newspaper that “we spend a lot of time trying to make sure that in our very busy days we follow the letter of the law.”

Atkins, who will leave office in December, was elected to her final term in the Senate in 2020. Two years later, she sent the $22,500 in leftover campaign funds to LeSar’s company, the Global Policy Leadership Academy. Records show this was done in January 2019. Founded.

According to Ravel, donations (and requested payments) to charitable, educational, civic, religious or other tax-exempt organizations are the only acceptable contributions from campaign funds, as long as the contribution is reasonably related to a political, legislative or administrative purpose.

She noted that Atkins’ payment far exceeds the $200 amount generally accepted as a substantial personal benefit. A situation that raised similar questions involved Attorney General Rob Bonta before he left the Legislature in 2021, she said.

Bonta, a Democrat and himself a likely candidate for governor, had made high-pressure payments to the nonprofit where his wife, now lawmaker Mia Bonta, previously served as director. Solicited payments are money requested, proposed, solicited, or made in cooperation with a government official. Although Mia Bonta benefited from some of that money, it was not given for her own use, but on behalf of the nonprofit, Ravel explained.

Atkins has supported strengthening campaign ethics rules. In 2014, amid a series of scandals at the Capitol, the then-Assemblyman sponsored a series of bills, including a measure signed by then-Governor Jerry Brown to ban the spouse or domestic partner of an elected official or candidate from receiving campaign funds for services rendered.

The campaign money Atkins sent to LeSar’s firm was set aside in the senator’s May through June 2022 disclosure forms to register for a “public housing field study trip” to Vienna for Atkins and two of her staffers — $7,500 each.

Housing is a top issue for Californians, given its exorbitant cost. Building more housing has been a difficult challenge for lawmakers and local officials. POLITICO previously reported that public housing in Vienna is not exclusively intended for low-income people. More than half of the city’s nearly two million residents live in subsidized housing, and the city owns about half of the available apartments and co-ops.

In addition, Atkins’ campaign reported paying entities not affiliated with her husband: international travel agency Altour and Sato Tours for her and her staff, approximately $16,000 additional for lodging and travel from Los Angeles to Vienna from September 9 to 22, 2022, according to the same application for campaign disclosure.

Atkins said he had sent another $9,781 to Steirereck, the fine-dining restaurant in the spacious Stadtpark that specializes in fresh Austrian produce and has two Michelin stars. The money was earmarked for a deposit on a Sept. 15, 2022, dinner for 80 guests attending the trip.

The same year, Atkins announced that she and her husband received more than $100,000 in earnings from the Global Policy Leadership Academy. She identified the company’s fair market value as between $100,000 and $1 million.

The Global Policy Leadership Academy describes itself as helping prepare “professionals and civic leaders to advance solutions to persistent societal challenges through a deep commitment to developing shared knowledge, best practices and collaboration.”

LeSar said that the Global Policy Leadership Academy “is not my first company, and I doubt it will be my last, but it is undoubtedly my most scalable and impactful company,” adding that they “strive to connect and create build a network. global practice group for leaders and influencers working on the world’s most intractable crises.”

Atkins’ name does not appear in the company’s promotional materials, and there is little evidence online of her on the 2022 trip. However, she does appear for a brief segment in a GPLA promotional video posted to YouTube that features Atkins on can be seen in the background, wearing a face mask, while LeSar is in the foreground speaking to a table of participants.

The video also features a Los Angeles lobbyist who attended the 2022 trip to Vienna and serves on the board of the California Community Foundation, which has given GPLA a $150,000 grant for 2019-2020. Another participant was Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer. He attended as part of an effort to study public housing strategies to help with the city’s housing crisis.

The Fresno Bee newspaper reported that the academy’s registration fee, meals, lodging, ground transportation and plane tickets for three city officials came to less than $29,000. And Dyer reflected fondly on the trip in a recent conversation with POLITICO in Sacramento, saying it was a valuable experience for him.

Other groups that approved the cost of that year’s trip to Vienna included the Southern California Association of Government and its San Diego counterpart, known locally as SANDAG.