What’s The Beef Over Jerry Brown Contributions?
Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner on Wednesday called on Attorney General Jerry Brown to return $52,500 in campaign contributions received from relatives and a company of two men he is currently investigating in a public pension fund corruption probe.
Which immediately caused Calbuzz to ask: “What’s the problem?”
Late last year, Brown took $48,000 in contributions from relatives of Sacramento lobbyist Darius Anderson and another $4,500 from a company run by LA fundraiser Daniel Weinstein, according to the Sacramento Bee.
Later, it became known that New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo was investigating Anderson’s Gold Bridge Capital and Weinstein’s Wetherly Capital for their roles in helping money management firms secure multimillion-dollar investments from public pension funds in several states.
And so Attorney General Jerry Brown’s office opened an investigation into Gold Bridge and Wetherly, as well. Even though they were campaign contributors.
Wait a minute. We don’t have to defend Darius Anderson or Daniel Weinstein (or even Hank Morris, the former Dianne Feinstein consultant who is at the center of Cuomo’s investigation), to see that Poizner – and the Sac B, for that matter – are whacking Brown for what? Doing his job? How incredibly disingenuous.
If General Field Marshal Jerry took contributions and dropped an investigation – that might be a story. If he failed to investigate a guy who was a big contributor – that could be news.
But this sounds to us like Brown is following something akin to the Jesse Unruh Rule: “If you can’t eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women, take their money and then vote against them, you’ve got no business being up here.”
Has Commissioner Poizner accepted money from the insurance industry? If so, what is the source of that allegation? The Secretary of State website?