Voice of OC(EA) SMEAR Campaign against Senate Republican Candidate Janet Nguyen
Posted by Newsletter Reprint on September 7, 2013
This just came across the wire from the Janet Nguyen for Senate campaign:
WARNING – Voice of OC(EA) SMEAR Campaign against Senate Republican Candidate Janet Nguyen
The self-described “non-profit investigative news agency” blog called Voice of OC has been conducting a relentless smear campaign geared towards keeping Republican candidate Janet Nguyen out of the California State Senate.
Recently they have focused on Janet’s involvement in making the County Organized Health System (CalOptima) operations more accountable and transparent. One out of every 4 residents of Janet’s district utilize CalOptima. She is proud of her advocacy efforts on their behalf as a member of the CalOptima Board of Directors. Janet has also co-hosted annual Central County Health and Senior Expos with numerous public agencies, non-profits, community organizations and local businesses since 2010 – this was recently chronicled by the OC Register. The Expos, through the generosity of thousands of volunteers, have served over 10,000 children, adults and seniors who do not have access to preventative health care, generating substantial savings for the taxpayers as preventive health care needs are addressed before these residents resort to costly emergency room services.
Unfortunately, Janet’s efforts to reform CalOptima and outreach to the community have been mischaracterized by the Voice of OC blog whose only interest is to further their own political agenda through an organized smear campaign.
Some have asked why this Blog has taken such an interest in a smear campaign against Janet Nguyen?
The answer should be obvious. Just follow the money. A check of the Voice of OC’s most recent IRS filings shows that nearly all of their funds come from labor unions and Democrat donors. A full 63% comes from a single public employee union – OCEA. The remainder from Democrat/liberal donors or groups. These entities all have a huge stake in making sure State Senate Dems keep their 2/3rds super majority.
Here’s the rundown according to the Voice of OC’s own tax returns:
TOTAL FUNDS RECEIVED (report from latest 2 year period) : $797,040
Orange County Employees Association – $499,500 63%
California Endowment – $121,012 15%
Wylie Aitken (Former Chair Democratic Foundation of OC) – $85,000 10%
United Food & Commercial Workers – $25,000 3%
Former Democratic Senator Joe Dunn – $14,635 2%
*Major Democrat Donors: – $30,000 4%
Unnamed small donors – $21,956 3%*(donors to: Act Blue, DCCC, Barbara Boxer, Beth Krom for Congress, Alan Lowenthal for Congress, Loretta Sanchez for Congress)
OC Political 
Jeff Gallagher said
What a joke. Funny how the corrupt Nguyen fails to mention how much OCEA money she has pulled in through shell PACs. And, before the Baugh Manifesto, she gladly accepted money from unions. I guess that doesn’t count. Nguyen is the most corrupt OC Supervisor this county has seen since the Bankruptcy. John Moorlach may have frequent lapses in ethics but, Nguyen is the complete package of corruption in action. And, with that temper of hers, she would get absolutely nothing done in Sacramento.
OC Insider Vern said
That’s funny, I always thought Janet and OCEA head Nick Berardino were thick as thieves, and union blogger Chris Prevatt of the Liberal OC has always treated her with kid gloves. I’m not so sure the great journalists at Voice of OC haven’t gone ROGUE!
OC Insider #29 (aka Greg Diamond) said
Why would OCEA be going out of its way to help Nguyen’s opponent Jose Solorio, widely considered to be untrustworthy by Labor (outside of the Building Trades and OC Teamsters?) Doesn’t make sense.
I think that Nguyen’s actions on CalOptima are being covered because they are seriously big news, period.
And wasn’t that half-mil from OCEA the already acknowledged seed money? Whose “press release” is this, anyway?
OC Insider Vern said
Good point, whose press release is this. It’s either pretty sloppy to leave that off…. or else Janet doesn’t even want to be on the record criticizing the OCEA, having her union-attack cake and eating it too.
To be fair (as a devil’s advocate) it does make sense though that unions would want to keep a 2/3 Dem majority. But overall this piece, far from a defense of Janet’s CalOptima actions, is a lame bit of guilt-by-association aimed at people who hate unions.
Dr. Quest said
Vern and Greg don’t think the OC Register can fairly cover Anaheim government after the Freedom Communications naming rights for ARTIC deal, but you think the Voice of OC’s coverage of county and Anaheim politics is not compromised by its dependence on OCEA to keep its doors open. *EDITORS NOTE: Short, irrelevant attack sentence deleted here; the rest of the comment since is on topic so it stays.*
OC Insider #29 (aka Greg Diamond) said
I was under the impression that the house rules here discouraged ad hominem attacks — and all the more so from anonymous commenters such as this. I’d probably enjoy responding in kind, but instead I’ll ask the Chrises for a ruling. If you could also send me this anonymous poster’s IP address as punishment, it would be fun for me to test my hypothesis. (I’ll tell only the Chrises if I’m right.)
Now, to address directly the argument made by someone apparently afraid, for some unknown reason, to criticize either the Voice of OC or the OCEA directly:
When I’ve talked to VOC people, they’ve said that they got their seed money from OCEA (by now it would be a couple of years ago, right?) but do not have a continued “dependence on OCEA to keep its doors open.” I don’t know whether that’s true, but on its face it’s plausible, so I’d think you should check your factual assertions before you make them.
To the extent that the VOC were compromised at all, it would most likely be in investigating and reporting on corruption in the OC union movement. I don’t think that they are compromised in this way, though, because other journalistic venues also don’t report on corruption in the OC union movement — suggesting to me that it’s just not there.
One might argue that some local union leaders may (for the sake of argument) be ham-fisted and mean and have bad policy priorities — but that’s not actual corruption. At worst, it’s pursuit of the interests of represented workers in a way that may (or may not) be adverse to the interests of the public at large. And where that interest is adverse — the prison guards desire for more jails filled to the brim, for example — it’s establishment Republican publications that tend to promote them.
Generally, the VOC’s articles can be assessed on the basis of their factual assertions; I think that they are as good or better than the Register’s by that standard. But I submit to you that, in our media environment, the failure of the VOC to cover a story of public services union malfeasance is a blade of grass compared to the mighty redwood of the Register’s failure to cover something like corruption in the Platinum Triangle area.
If the VOC fails to cover something uncomplimentary about the OCEA, someone else will big readership will. If the Register fails to cover an Anaheim City Council giveaway, there’s a good chance that many many people who should see the story won’t. And that’s the difference, cartoonish critic.
Chris Emami said
I screwed up. My fault completely on not identifying who the press release came from. It’s from the Janet Nguyen for Senate campaign. I’ve updated the post to show that. They sent it out with their logo and paid for by message. Their original press release is http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=133a6872ed0d66075801d5aa2&id=352847dc32&e=43d2547e6a