Earlier today, Ami Bera showed up on our list of the worst Democrats in Congress. The list was based on his reactionary voting record, not on his grotesque corruption, corruption for which he's going to allow his 83-year old father to act as the fall guy and possibly go to prison. The California labor unions that were instrumental in first electing and then sustaining Bera in Congress, have abandoned him and are refusing to even back him as the lesser of two evils against roly poly Republican sexual predator Scott Jones. Bera has an execrable voting recorded earned an "F" from ProgressivePunch. Only 11 Democrats in Congress have voted more frequently against progressive positions on crucial issues. He was one of only 28 Democrats, for example, to vote for Fast Track authority for the TPP.Babulal Bera, the congressman's father, pleaded guilty to campaign fraud charges in May and is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court in Sacramento on Thursday. Federal prosecutors have recommended a year in prison and a $130,200 fine for his role in a multi-year scheme hatched by Steve Israel and involving half a dozen of the most corrupt 2014 New Dem candidates, particularly Bera and crooked Florida congressman Patrick Murphy and his big-spending Republican parents. In their sentencing recommendation, prosecutors wrote that Babulal crime was "broad, sustained and knowingly wrong." He admitted it as part of a deal to keep his equally guilty wife (who is 81 and very ill) out of prison and to keep the spotlight away from his son, who directed the operation at Steve Israel's instructions. Babulal, who addressed the court through a Gujarati interpreter, doesn't speak English well enough to have pulled this complex a scheme off on his own.
“The amounts he directed into the campaign were significant, and as discussed below they may have helped establish the legitimacy of the campaign,” prosecutors wrote in the filing signed by Philip A. Ferrari, assistant U.S. attorney. “Finally, this defendant knew his acts were wrong, and he took active steps to conceal them, using multiple bank accounts and sometimes writing reimbursement checks from multiple accounts on the same day.”“However enthusiastic he may have been about the prospect that his son would be a United States Congressman, he cannot explain away his actions as the result of runaway emotions,” they added.
Babulal sponsored over 300 Gujaratis to come to the U.S. and ran a small chain of sleazy motels. Many people are shocked that the Congressman is allowing his father to take the fall and possibly go to prison to advance his own miserable political career. He claims he hasn't even discussed the case with his father.
"More corrupt than I am"James Wedick, a retired FBI agent who worked on high-profile public corruption probes, referred to the case as “unusual” because it’s far more common to have politicians themselves orchestrate sophisticated and illicit ways to underwrite their campaigns than their aging parents.“For a parent to get this involved in the race without including (Ami Bera), or telling others, or getting advice as to what to do? I don’t know. It defies reasoning a little bit,” Wedick said. “And most of the time when I have looked, it’s a lot a more complicated than people have suggested. Where there’s smoke there’s usually fire.”Separate from the criminal probe, The Bee reported in May that Ami Bera and his family, including his parents, participated in a complex series of campaign donations involving the families of other Democratic congressional candidates. Campaign finance experts said the contributions, which often came within days of one another, generally do not violate federal law, but were another way to avoid individual donation limits.Ami Bera has said the contributions often were arranged by the candidates themselves, but in some cases may also have been initiated by the candidates’ families or their campaign staffs. Bera also said he periodically asked his wife and parents to contribute to colleagues running in competitive contests, but that similar donations from those candidates and their relatives didn’t constitute “reimbursements.”Bera, who won the suburban Sacramento seat in 2012 and defended it two years later, faces a November challenge from Republican Sacramento County Sheriff Scott Jones. Jones’ campaign continues to insist the congressman was fully aware of the illegal fundraising scheme and now is dishonorably allowing his elderly father to take the blame.
Bera's district, CA-07, is entirely in Sacramento County and made up primarily of Sacramento's eastern suburbs from Elk Grove and Carmichael to Citrus Heights and Rancho Cordova and out to Folsom. Obama won the district twice, leading McCain by 6 points and Romney by 4 points. In his reelection bid in 2014, in which he used the illegal campaign funds, Bera was nearly defeated and squeaked by with 92,521 votes to Republican Doug Ose's 91,066 votes. Bera spent $4,317,863 to Ose's $5,114,546. The DCCC spent $4,654,796 to help Bera and Pelosi's House Majority PAC kicked in another $1,203,057-- almost $6 million for a contemptible fake Democrat who has always been there for Boehner and Ryan to vote with the GOP so they could call their anti-working family legislation "bipartisan." Bera is a perfect example of why the Democratic Party has nothing going for it any long except the ability to call itself the lesser of two evils. The reason all elections should have a "none of the above" option is because of politicians like Ami Bera.Steve Israel's scheme to circumvent campaign finance laws
