Dear friends of inewsource,
It’s hard to believe that we’re again in election season, and if you haven’t yet noticed, we’re here to help.
inewsource re-launched its Follow the Money feature this morning with the race for San Diego County District Attorney, which is shaping up to warrant a very close look. Incumbent Bonnie Dumanis is going for a fourth term and facing two opponents in the June primary: a former prosecutor-turned civil litigator and another former federal prosecutor.
The news?
- Dumanis is behind Bob Brewer, the litigator, in fundraising with three weeks to go before voters start casting mail ballots. She’s lagging notably among contributors in the legal profession.
- Several deputy district attorneys — whose union endorsed Dumanis — made contributions, with all three candidates receiving some money from DDAs.
- Two sitting San Diego County Superior Court judges contributed to Dumanis’ re-election campaign, actions that one legal ethicist called “inappropriate.”
Our intrepid money follower — inewsource reporter Joe Yerardi — analyzed the contributions and put them in an easy-to-search database . Just type in a name, an occupation, city, amount of contribution …
A special note: Much of this story would not have been possible without the cooperation of the Dumanis and Brewer campaigns and an independent committee supporting Brewer. The county Registrar of Voters does not collect candidates’ donor information electronically, so we asked the campaigns for their original electronic records. Candidate and former prosecutor Terri Wyatt said no so inewsource hand-entered her contributions.
Read the full story here on our website.
[highlight]Old phone call raises new questions.[/highlight]
Also on the DA front, inewsource worked with KPBS reporter Amita Sharma on an article Monday about some political wrangling that’s come to the fore recently.
It has to do with potential political appointments and subsequent investigations.
You can read the full tale here .
[highlight]How’s about a blog?[/highlight]
At inewsource, we dig deep and crunch loudly — numbers, that is. So, we don’t have new material on our website daily. It takes time to do this work.
That’s why we’ve added a blog that focuses on issues in the journalism world, public access and updates on stories we’ve been reporting. We’re particularly excited to tell you about some of the speakers the schools of journalism and the sciences have brought to SDSU recently. Hint: one flew a drone right here!
You have a reason to visit inewsource.org early and often. So tell your friends. Forward this email!