Today is the deadline for the various candidates up for election on June 3 to file their campaign disclosure statements. The statements detail how much money each candidate has raised or lent their campaign between March 18 and May 17.
Throughout the day, the election team at voiceofsandiego.org will be updating the Election Central blog as the campaign statements come in. We’ll be covering the mayor’s race, City Council races and the city attorney’s race.
The first one up: city attorney candidate Brian Maienschein. The councilman wowed city hall observers in March when he significantly out-fundraised everyone else in the race.
Maienschein’s statement says he raised $252,645 in the last two months. That looks like a huge amount, but not much of that total is actually in new contributions.
Maienschein ran, uncontested, for reelection to the City Council in 2000. In that race, he raised more than $250,000, which he stashed away in the bank. He is using that money to fund his city attorney run, much to the chagrin of his opponents.
According to his campaign statements, Maienschein transferred $231,917 from his City Council campaign account to his city attorney campaign account. A quick calculation shows that he therefore raised $20,728 in actual new contributions. That’s significantly less than he raised in the first three months of 2008, when his campaign brought in $64,912.
I’m waiting for a call from Maienschein.
Look for more updates as the statements are filed.