By Arturo Castañares / La Prensa / October 23, 2023
A brother and sister team of political consultants worked both for and against a city council candidate during the 2020 election according to a new investigation request filed with the San Diego Democratic Party by the victim of the fraud.
Marcus Bush, who was endorsed by the Democratic Party in his successful campaign for the City Council in National City in November 2020, requested an internal investigation into Andrea Cardenas who runs Grassroots Resources LLC, a local consulting firm owned by her brother, Jesus Cardenas.
Andrea Cardenas, 31, herself an elected member of the Chula Vista City Council, was up for endorsement by the San Diego County Democratic Party last week when the issue of her involvement in negative campaign mailers attacking Bush became an issue used to oppose her endorsement. Bush alleges that the Cardenas siblings were involved in opposing his campaign while at the same time their company was being paid by the local Democratic Party to support him and other Democrats in the South Bay areas of San Diego County.
After a presentation last week before an online meeting of the Party’s governing Central Committee where Cardenas claimed she never worked against a candidate endorsed by the local Democratic Party, the group voted 31 to 15 to endorse her re-election campaign in next year’s election. Cardenas received the minimum amount of votes required for an endorsement.
But Bush maintains that evidence points to the consultants having covertly worked against him in his campaign in violation of both of the Party’s bylaws that restrict members and candidates from working against endorsed candidates, and also defrauding the Party as hired consultants paid to provide honest and professional services in support of the Party’s candidates.
“I’m deeply concerned about evidence I’ve seen that in the 2020 election the same consultants the Democratic Party paid to support me as an endorsed candidate were also getting paid to attack me – all while using racist, anti-Black messaging in the process” Bush told La Prensa San Diego in response to questions about his complaint. “I have requested our Party leaders to investigate this matter and take concrete steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” Bush added.
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This is what makes politics so fun and/or repulsive.
Chula Vista City Councilmember Andrea Cardenas and her brother, Jesus Cardenas, have been charged with felony counts of conspiracy to commit a crime, money laundering, and other charges stemming from an alleged fraudulent loan for their political consulting business, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office announced Wednesday.
According to a criminal complaint, the siblings fraudulently obtained a $176,227 Paycheck Protection Program loan in early 2021 intended for their firm, Grassroots Resources.
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