SAN DIEGO — The San Diego region’s most competitive congressional election could prove a referendum on national politics and the Trump administration. But another theme is defining messaging in the race: ethics and transparency in how the candidates run political campaigns.

Mailers and attack ads from both camps are hitting the records of Republican Jim Desmond and Democrat Marni von Wilpert, who have both faced scrutiny from oversight agencies for their campaign fundraising. The race in the 48th Congressional District, which stretches from Escondido and Oceanside north into Riverside County, could be crucial in determining control of Congress.

Recent mailers sent out by National Republican Congressional Committee attack von Wilpert for a “record of corruption” as a member of San Diego’s City Council. Their evidence: The city’s Ethics Commission once fined von Wilpert $6,200 for violating the city’s ethics code by not properly disclosing campaign donors.

At the same time, the House Majority PAC, a group supporting Democrats, is broadcasting TV ads and sending out mailers accusing Desmond of steering taxpayer money to a donor’s company, noting an ongoing investigation by state election regulators.

“Desmond will fit right in with the sleazy corruption in Trump’s D.C.,” the ad tells viewers.

Despite such attacks, Mesa College political science professor Carl Luna isn’t convinced they’ll resonate with voters like they might have in years past, citing the many allegations of corruption within the Trump administration.

“In the current age of corruption, that’s Boy Scout-level,” he said of the charges being made in the 48th district race.

It’s possible it will energize partisan voters, Luna added, but it might be less effective in winning over swing voters concerned with economic issues and the cost of living.

Von Wilpert’s fines

In 2022, Von Wilpert and her campaign treasurer were issued $6,200 in fines by the city’s Ethics Commission for failing to file disclosures of whether her donors had business before the city — 27 violations for the 27 donations she did not properly disclose.

The fines stemmed from her first bid for City Council in 2020, and from an ensuing legal battle over ballot designations after she and her opponent sued each other over the language each chose to describe themselves.

Her opponent Joe Leventhal, then a partner in a large law firm, called himself a “small business owner” in materials submitted to appear on the ballot. Von Wilpert, then a deputy city attorney, described herself as a “prosecutor.” Although the Office of the City Attorney does prosecute misdemeanor cases, von Wilpert worked in its affirmative litigation unit suing corporations in civil court.

The court ultimately ordered both to change their descriptions for being misleading. For von Wilpert, the judge wrote that calling herself a prosecutor was “misleading because it implies criminal experience that Ms. von Wilpert does not have.”

To finance the legal battle at the time, von Wilpert formed a legal defense fund that pulled in donations from family members, housing developers and lobbyists. The city requires all such contributions to be accompanied with a form disclosing if the donor has any business before the city — but von Wilpert’s fund did not file any.

In a stipulation, the Ethics Commission said von Wilpert as a first-time candidate had “reasonably relied” on her campaign’s professional treasurer, Politica Campaign Treasury, to file such forms and that the company had “taken full responsibility for the violations described herein and will be responsible for paying the fine.”

In an interview, von Wilpert characterized the fine as a paperwork error by the former campaign treasurer and said Desmond’s ads make the violations sound worse than they really were.

“There’s not a lot of there there,” von Wilpert said. “They’re going to attack me because they have no good platform to stand on.”

Desmond disagrees.

“She’s professing to want to clean up the corruption in Washington, D.C., and she’s got 27 ethics violations that she was fined thousands of dollars for,” Desmond said in an interview. “To me, you’ve got to clean up your own house before you say you’re going to clean up Washington, D.C.”

Desmond under investigation

For Desmond, scrutiny of his campaign fundraising has come from the California Fair Political Practices Commission, the state’s election watchdog, and remains ongoing.

The FPPC has been investigating Desmond for two years over his role in a campaign to defeat a 2024 ballot measure that would have imposed a half-cent sales tax surcharge to fund transportation in the county. That measure failed.

The investigation was triggered by a complaint from a resident named Barbara Campbell alleging that Desmond controlled the political committee opposing the ballot measure, and that he had violated election law by not disclosing as much and by having it accept money from a developer to whom he’d steered public funding.

“The No on G Committee is a committee controlled by Supervisor Desmond because of his direct involvement and influence,” the complaint says, citing Desmond’s efforts to fundraise against the measure and his public remarks opposing it. “The Committee actively violates the Political Reform Act by not properly disclosing this fact to voters.”

That committee accepted $5,000 in August 2024 from James Silverwood, the CEO of Affirmed Housing months after Desmond voted in favor of awarding $13 million in county affordable-housing funding to Affirmed’s Windsor Pointe development in Carlsbad — a campaign donation Campbell argued violates election law.

Neither Campbell nor her attorney responded to a request for comment.

The FPPC decided the complaint merited its opening a case. On Oct. 16, 2024, about three weeks after receiving and notifying Desmond of the complaint, the commission informed him it would investigate.

“You will next receive notification from us upon final disposition of the case,” it wrote in a letter. “However, please be advised that at this time we have not made any determination about the validity of the allegation(s) you have made or about the culpability, if any, of the person(s) you identify in your complaint.”

Asked last week for an update, FPPC spokesperson Shery Yang declined to comment on the investigation’s status, and the FPPC’s website lists it as open and pending.

Desmond has downplayed it.

“Anybody can put in a complaint,” he said. “They were just complaints and they were so far found to be unfounded.”

Von Wilpert disagrees. “We’re seeing him give breaks to developers that he’s now under investigation for, and that’s not what we need in Congress,” she said.

Desmond faced similar allegations years earlier, but regulators did not find they merited investigation.

In 2018, a citizen named Ana Rosvall filed complaints with the FPPC and with the city of San Marcos alleging Desmond, then the city’s mayor, had run afoul of local campaign finance rules requiring city officials to abstain from votes concerning their donors.

As mayor, Desmond had greenlit two housing projects from developers that were donating to his campaign for county supervisor. At the time, his campaign argued that city rules didn’t apply to a campaign for county office.

San Marcos hired an outside law firm to consider the complaint. Within days of its referral, the outside firm determined the allegations didn’t warrant an investigation. The FPPC ultimately also decided not to investigate.

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