A political mailer that arrived on residents' doorsteps last month near Baldwin Hills sparked controversy in the Los Angeles City Council race for District 10 and prompted the council to take action this week.
The City Council approved a proposal Wednesday to crack down on fraudulent and “deepfakes” campaign materials after a Baldwin Hills mailer, appearing to be from council candidate and current Councilwoman Heather Hutt, attracted attention. Hott made the proposal in early February, days after the letter was distributed.
The colorful mailer included a photo of Hutt and Mayor Karen Bass smiling together and a list of endorsements. It is packaged with a printed list of official city resources and a logo identifying Hott as a council member.
This would violate regulations established by the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission that prohibit city officials from using their title or position with the city to support a candidate for office, including themselves. By including campaign materials alongside the City Council logo, Hutt has violated that rule, its critics say.
But Hutt campaign adviser Mike Shimbock said the campaign was not responsible for the mailers and had no knowledge of them. He said someone downloaded the campaign flyer from the Ethics Commission's website, where it is available to the public, then printed it out and distributed it themselves with a list of resources.
Shimbock said whoever distributed the materials was trying to show that Haute had violated regulations.
“It's ridiculous and coming from someone who has an ax to grind,” Shimbock said. “We never printed or produced this.”
Grace Yu, a former city commissioner who is running against Hott, said she believes Hott filed to hide an ethics violation.
“This is terrible,” Yu said. “The truth is they violated ethics. They were caught red-handed in their lies and were covering their tracks.”
Devin Bakewell, communications director for the Hout City Council office, said the proposal was made “in response to the fact that technology is far outpacing our ethical codes, not just on a local level but on a national level.”
“Whether it's dirty tricks against the Assemblywoman's campaign, fake Biden robocalls in New Hampshire, or Purdue University's need to create a database of political deepfake incidents, we must put an end to this activity now,” she said in an email.
Council President Paul Krikorian and Council Member Tracy Park supported the proposal. Krikorian's spokesman said Krikorian was not aware of the mailer when he chose to support the proposal.
Diane Lawrence, a District 10 resident who wrote a critical article about the mailer for the CityWatch news site, disputed Shimpock's claim that the flyer was downloaded from the Ethics Commission's website.
The drawing was posted on the site on February 2, but Lawrence said residents received the materials in late January, before an outside party was able to access and download the image.
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Lawrence sent the Times cellphone photos of items found on doorsteps time-stamped on January 28. Shimbock said the photos were “obviously” fake.
Shimbock also said the sender of the mail could not have been from Hutt's campaign because it did not have a small mark indicating that it was printed by union-represented workers. He said all official Hutt campaign mailings include the mark.
“This whole thing is clearly fake,” he added. “We ran a very clean campaign, we were honest about all this stuff, and we only talked about Heather.”
