Supporting Toni Atkins and Who Else?

Assemblywoman Toni Atkins, a San Diego Democrat, is holding a $1,000-per-head cocktail fundraiser January 16 at a Sacramento Irish pub near the Capitol. 

Atkins generously notes on the invitation below that under the terms of Proposition 35, approved by voters in 2000, “an individual, union, (Political Action Committee) and other entities may contribute a maximum of $4,100 to (her) committee per election, primary and general.  A registered Small Contributor Committee may contribute a maximum of $8,200 per election.”

When passed, the proposition restricted those contributions to $3,000 and $6,000, respectively. But it also included a provision that in January of every odd-numbered year those limits would be revised based on changes in the Consumer Price Index.

Ostensibly, Atkins’ event is to aid her reelection bid in 2014.

But if her campaign spending history and her current “leadership” role in the lower house are any indicator, the majority of the money she receives will be spent on other legislative races.

Why? 

First, she doesn’t need the cash. She was reelected in 2012 in her heavily Democratic district with 63 percent of the vote. 

That easy win came despite transferring $231,100 of the more than $477,000 she raised last year to the California Democratic Party, Democratic Central Committee of San Diego and the California Vote Project 2012, whose goal was to increase Democratic turnout statewide.