In the Supervisor's race, the Times got it wrong

The Los Angeles Times wrote their obligatory story last week about the fundraising in the race for the open 2nd Supervisorial District, but, as is fairly typical with the Times, they missed the bigger story.

While the Times reported accurately that former Police Chief and current Councilman Bernard Parks outraised former Councilman and current State Senator Mark Ridley Thomas, the Times reporter neglected to pull the public campaign reports of the Independent Expenditure Committees that have been formed to support Thomas. These reports show that the IE campaign, funded by unions has amassed $2.7 million to spend against Parks. This is more than double the combined amount that both candidate’s official campaign committees have raised.  The Deputy Sheriffs Union has kicked in $500,000 and the Firefighters Union has also given $350,000 to the effort. Virtually every Union in the County has thrown big money into the IE campaign.

It is just over 2 months to election day and the campaigning has really just begun. It will be interesting to see how the money is spent, and also, if the shoddy reporting from the Times continues.