Democrats have called out the Fair Political Practices Commission (FFPC) to investigate the Republican Party's violation of federal campaign finance laws in its support of Andy Vidak (C) who seeks re-election in the midterm elections for the Senate seats.

Selma Democrat Douglas Kessler filed the complaint at FFPC Monday. The complaint alleged that the Republican Party violated federal campaign finance laws.

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The Republican Party supported Vidak for months that amounted to almost US$600,000 both directly and in kind. However, wealthy donor Charles Munger Jr. has been contributing and spending on Vidak's behalf in which the Republican Party declared his contribution as independent expenditures to avoid campaign finance law's coverage.

The complaint states the independent expenditures amounted to at least US$214,000 from the state GOP to Vidak, but Kessler found that Munger gave around US$3 million to the Republican Party.

According to a Sacramento attorney Lance Olson, who works with the Democrats, he has never seen anything like the allegations against the Republican Party. He said the FFPC should take a look at their claims and investigate.

Olson added that the political parties can only contribute up to US$34,000 if the money will be donated to individual candidates.

Olson also said that the Democratic Party has various donors to stay within the capped amount and give direct assistance to individual candidates. He said the Republicans are not flexible and they have relied too much on Munger's donation.

He also said the state GOP's illegal campaign spending is occurring in several competitive state legislative races and added that the Republican Party's spending patterns attempt to evade the law.

He then cited the 2012 incident when two Arizona nonprofit groups declined to disclose the source of the political donations that amounted to US$15 million. The said incident was investigated by the FFPC and the two groups had to pay a fine of US$1 million.

However, California Republican Party spokeswoman Kaitlyn MacGregor released a statement that they are unaware of the complaint as they have not seen anything pressing that nobody contacted them about the Democrat's claims. As for FFPC, spokesman Jay Wierenga said that their agency already received the complaint and are now looking at it.

This is not the first time the Democratic Party has filed a complaint against the Republican Party. Last week, they accused Republican challenger Jack Mobley over money management discrepancies in the Merced area. Mobley is running against incumbent Democrat Adam Gray.

Tagspolitics, Politics of the United States, Charlie Munger, berkshire hathaway, Independent expenditure, Campaign finance, Federal Campaign Finance Laws