The San Diego Union-Tribune reports that Washington lobbyist Denise Gitsham failed to complete her financial disclosure forms, leaving voters in the dark about potential conflicts of interest.
Earlier this month Gitsham came under fire for calling herself “ambiguously ethnic enough to pass as almost anything,” but now it’s her ambiguous ethics she’ll need to answer for. Gitsham is already knee-deep in a messy Republican primary.
“Washington lobbyist Denise Gitsham thinks the rules don’t apply to her,” said Barb Solish of the DCCC. “San Diegans deserve a representative they can trust.”
Denise Gitsham failed to file ethics report
Months behind a deadline, campaign turns in incomplete forms
San Diego Union-Tribune
By Joshua Stewart
March 29, 2016
SAN DIEGO — Congressional candidate Denise Gitsham hasn’t completed a required political ethics document, leaving voters unable to see how the former lobbyist makes a living and without information that could help them decide if she would have any potential financial conflicts of interest while in office.
The Republican candidate was supposed to give to the House Ethics Committee a completed Financial Disclosure Statement after her campaign raised or spent more than $5,000, a threshold she crossed on Oct. 26, 10 days before she announced campaign against incumbent Democrat Scott Peters.
Over five months later, her campaign said she has filed an incomplete version of the report on March 24 — a day after a reporter asked why the document had not been submitted earlier.
“She was hoping to get the outstanding info on … her jointly-owned condo before filing,” said Gitsham’s campaign manager, Jason Roe. She paid a $200 fee that candidates who file late must pay, he said.
The Office of the Clerk of the House had no record of any report from Gitsham available on its website as of Tuesday afternoon, and the office did not return a call about the financial document. Online archives show that all of her opponents have submitted the required forms.
Candidates and officeholders who are more than 30 days late are assessed a $200 fee, and they can be fined as much as $50,000 by the attorney general for deliberately withholding a report. Extensions up to 90 days are available and are regularly granted, but Gitsham did not seek extra time to submit the required paperwork.
Roe did not respond to questions about why Gitsham did not ask for an extension, nor did he respond to a request for a copy of Gitsham’s statement.
“As I understand it, there’s not an extension process,” Roe said. One of Gitsham’s Republican opponents, Jacquie Atkinson, received a 30-day extension and filed ahead of her new deadline. One of Roe’s former clients, Carl DeMaio, also received an extension when running for the House in 2014.
Another Republican running in the 52nd District, John Horst, was not required to file a financial statement because didn’t raise or spend more than $5,000 but he did submit paperwork attesting to his campaign committee’s finances.
Peters, D-San Diego, also filed documents, including details of and his wife’s stock transactions, as required of sitting members of Congress, the president and vice president, and Supreme Court justices.
The financial statements give voters details about a candidate’s or incumbent’s unearned income, earned income, salaries, other assets and liabilities.
Atkinson, for example, lists Veterans Affairs disability payments and the $133,000 she earns working for AT Solutions/PAE, a defense contractor. Peters’ statements show the millions of stock holdings he has with his wife; an analysis by Roll Call shows that Peters is the 11th wealthiest member of Congress and has around $40.2 million in assets.
Gitsham co-owns a small public relations firm that works for a variety of companies, including MTV Books, a chamber of commerce, biotech companies and other organizations. The company also works with political interests including former Maryland Governor Bob Ehrlich, and a super PAC that supported Gabriel Gomez, a Massachusetts Republican who lost in a special election to fill a Massachusetts U.S. Senate seat that was vacated when John Kerry became secretary of state.
It’s impossible to tell exactly how much a candidate or incumbent earns, owns or owes because in many instances the forms only require to list a range of the value rather than a precise number.
It is possible to determine where the money, regardless of the amount, comes from because candidates are required to identify sources of income and identify their investments by name.