FREMONT — Supporters of Democratic congressional candidate Ro Khanna filed a House ethics complaint Friday against Rep. Mike Honda over apparent coordination between Honda’s official staff and his campaign.
“We have a basic rule that you cannot trade on public assets to try to raise funds or advantage your own campaign,” Khanna said in a news conference at his campaign office.
The complaint is rooted in emails leaked this week to San Jose Metro, an alternative weekly newspaper by a former Honda staffer who claims to have quit under pressure to do campaign work. Honda’s chief of staff, Jennifer Van der Heide, early last year corresponded with Lamar Heystek, then the Honda campaign’s political director, about whom to invite to a State Department round-table on Feb. 21, 2013 at Santa Clara University.
Heystek wrote on Feb. 8 of that year that he had compiled “a list of South Asian tech/investment folks who’ve donated to candidates in the past” but not to Honda. Van der Heide replied a day later, “Great lists — how are we doing outreach to them for $? Can we at least collect emails and send newsletters or something if we can’t do straight asks electronically now? Also do you have the list of the South Asians now endorsing/supporting MH? I want to make sure we are including all of them. Invites going out first thing Monday morning.”
Khanna and his supporters say the emails exchange indicates a mixing of official and campaign events that’s forbidden by House ethics rules, even though Van der Heide’s emails came from her personal account and on a Saturday when she apparently wasn’t working. Heystek left Honda’s campaign in March 2014.
Honda campaign spokesman Vivek Kembaiyan said Friday that Honda, D-San Jose, “expects his staff to adhere to the highest ethical standards.”
“In this instance, while not a violation of House Rules, he believes staff should have taken more care to prevent the appearance of coordination,” he said, adding that Honda “is disappointed and has reiterated his policy and expectations to his staff.”
The congressman “welcomes any investigation,” Kembaiyan said. But he also accused Khanna of orchestrating “a fake news event in a desperate attempt at publicity to save his campaign from another failure at the polls.”
After finishing 20 points behind Honda in June’s primary, he said, Khanna is “desperate for any attention he can get, regardless of its lack of merit.”
While the incident may be a violation, voters might not care much about something that often happens behind the scenes, a House elections expert said.
“This is something that happens more often than one would be able to document,” said Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “I think you have to believe in Santa Claus to believe that official events have nothing to do with political events and vice versa.
“Everything is political.”
Yet “it’s certainly legitimate for Khanna to bring this up, and a totally legitimate thing for the Ethics Committee to look at,” Kondik added.
Milpitas Mayor Jose Esteves and Cupertino Vice Mayor Rod Sinks signed the House ethics complaint. Both have endorsed Khanna.
“We are failing at holding our elected officials responsible for their actions,” Sinks said at the news conference, adding that if Honda didn’t know about it, people should wonder who’s running his office and campaign. The buck, he said, must stop with him.
Campaign finance records show that of the 20 people who attended the State Department round-table, only one has ever contributed to Honda, five have ever contributed to Khanna, and one has given to both. Of more than 80 other invitees who apparently didn’t go, 11 have given to Honda campaign and 20 have given to Khanna, including two who gave to both.
Asked if this undercuts the accusation of pay-to-play politics, Khanna said Friday that Honda’s staff might have been just as eager to curry favor with Khanna donors as with those supporting the congressman. The coordination itself is “a clear ethics violation,” he said, “whether that’s for $1 or $1 million.”
Asked whether as a congressman he would forbid official staffers from working on his campaign, Khanna said he would merely ensure they keep their duties separate. “If there was someone on my staff who came close to that line, they would be fired,” he said.
Kondik said the situation merits investigation, but there’s little chance that the Ethics Committee will act before Election Day given that the House is in recess.
Besides, he said, “most people just don’t understand the difference between campaigns and the office. That doesn’t make it right. I think it’s both serious but also kind of insider baseball.”
“I don’t blame them for trying to publicize it; the accusations are significant … and Khanna is looking for any possible thing he can use because he has an uphill climb in this race.”
Josh Richman covers politics. Follow him at Twitter.com/Josh_Richman. Read the Political Blotter at IBAbuzz.com/politics.
