Candidate dismisses FPPC complaint

Travis Allen, a Huntington Beach resident running for the 72nd Assembly district, has denounced a complaint filed against him with the Fair Political Practices Commission.

Allen said the complaint is nothing but an attempt to shift the focus from what he called opponent Troy Edgar’s deteriorating campaign and from the fact that Edgar allegedly violated federal rules during his aborted congressional race earlier this year.

Seal Beach resident Heidi Abel filed a complaint with the FPPC on Oct. 15 alleging Allen loaned himself an extra $100,000 and failed to report at least three late contributions.

But Allen said he has a veteran treasurer working for him who made an honest clerical error.

“She made a minor campaign error,” he said. “As soon as we found out about it, it was fixed within 15 minutes.”

Allen said he loaned his campaign $100,000, which is the maximum, then contributed another $100,000, but his treasurer checked the loan instead of the contribution box, which resulted in the error.

“This is not an issue here,” Allen said.

The real issue, Allen said, is that Edgar allegedly used his corporate account to pay for his aborted congressional campaign materials and a complaint was filed against him with the Federal Election Commission.

Allen also said that independent polls show he’s ahead of Edgar by six points and that his opponent is trying to smear his campaign in desperation. It was unclear, though, whether Edgar’s campaign sanctioned the complaint by Abel.

The FPPC’s chief of enforcement, Gary Winuk, said his group has received the complaint but hasn’t decided whether or not to investigate Allen.

mona.shadia@latimes.com

Twitter: @MonaShadia