Reverge Anselmo is now officially a major donor.
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Reverge Anselmo is now officially a major donor.
It may have required an investigation by the Fair Political Practices Commission, but the son of a Connecticut billionaire, Reverge Anselmo, has finally come forward as a major campaign donor in Shasta County after giving nearly $1 million dollars to local right-wing causes over the past three years.
A News Café first reported that Anselmo did not come forward as a major donor in May after Shasta Forward, the political action committee that defended Shasta County Supervisors Leonard Moty, Mary Rickert and Joe Chimenti against the withdrawal financed by Anselmo last year, filed a complaint with the FPPC.
In turn, the FPPC launched an investigation into Anselmo’s Shasta County donations, as A News Café reported last week. Angela Brereton, head of the FPPC’s enforcement division, informed Anselmo that he was under investigation on May 31.
“This letter is to notify you that the Fair Political Practices Commission’s Enforcement Division has initiated a commission-initiated investigation into your possible violations of the campaign finance provisions of the Political Reform Act,” he said. warn Brereton.
Anselmo, who could not be reached for comment, apparently got the message. On July 19, he filed three major donor and independent expenditure committee campaign returns, known as Form 461s, for the years 2020, 2021 and 2022. During that time period, Anselmo contributed $944,900 to causes on the right in Shasta County.
According to the new filings, in 2020 Anselmo gave $110,000 to Patrick Jones’ successful bid for the District 4 supervisor seat, an unprecedented amount for a local race in Shasta County. The following year, new regulations capped individual contributions to city and county candidates at $4,900.
In 2021, Anselmo gave $450,000 to the Shasta General Purpose Committee, the PAC that funded the retirement of Moty, Rickert and Chimenti. After failing to collect enough signatures to recall Rickert and Chimenti, the PAC focused most of its funding on recalling Moty, who was finally recalled earlier this year.
In 2022, Anselmo gave $200,000 to the Shasta General Purpose Committee and $180,000 to the Freedom Committee. The latter PAC promoted a slate of six ultraconservative candidates in the June primary election. Four of these candidates were strongly defeated; two face off in a runoff election in the fall.
Anselmo also gave $4,900 to District 5 supervisor candidate Baron Browning. Browning chose to keep the unsolicited contribution despite Anselmo’s growing reputation as a carpet meddler.
The son of a billionaire satellite TV pioneer, Anselmo tried his hand at producing movies in Hollywood before moving to Shasta County in the 2000s, where he built a restaurant and winery near Shingletown. After running afoul of Shasta County over zoning violations, Anselmo sold the property and returned to his native Connecticut.
Anselmo, an extreme libertarian, has given her $1.4 million Rand Paul’s Protect Freedom PAC. With the exception of the $4,900 donation to Browning, the $1 million Anselmo has spent in Shasta County over the past three years has gone exclusively to right-wing candidates and causes.
This is not the first time Anselmo has come under scrutiny from the FPPC for his Shasta County political donations. In 2012, it was fine of $800 when he “failed to timely file a semiannual campaign return” after giving $31,900 to local candidates, including $10,000 to Patrick Jones’ first unsuccessful attempt to win a county supervisor seat.
Will the fact that Anselmo has now come forward as a major donor prevent him from being fined again? Not necessarily, says FPPC Communications Director Jay Wierenga.
“Generally speaking, if the person only corrects the error or omission after being notified of it, they are not given the mitigating action as opposed to the action itself before any notification,” Wierenga said .
“If someone files a complaint with us and then we notify the person filing the Form 700, who then makes a correction, any correction/amendment is considered a good thing…but again, the person generally doesn’t would be given so much leeway compared to mitigation. fixing it themselves first.”
The new case against Anselmo joins three ongoing FPPC investigations into possible campaign finance violations by the Recall Shasta County PAC, the Red, White and Blueprint docuseries and the Shasta General Purpose Committee . All four investigations are active and remain open.
Stay tuned.
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