As reported in The Sacramento Bee last month, Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s office awarded the contract for a voter education and outreach campaign to the firm SKD Knickerbocker, which touts itself as being proud to be a part of “Team Biden” on its website.
According to the state agency, SKD Knickerbocker, whose clients have included many high-ranking Democrats, was chosen from a pool of three finalists through an expedited emergency bid process. The firm is now tasked with running “Vote Safe California,” a state information campaign to encourage voting by mail and inform Californians about changes to Election Day due to the coronavirus.
In a letter to Secretary of State Alex Padilla on Wednesday, three house Republicans said there are “serious questions” about how the contract was awarded and possible conflicts of interest.
“Being awarded a $35 million contract to contact voters using taxpayer money while publicly advertising its work on behalf of Joe Biden’s campaign for president and employing a senior advisor to his campaign essentially provides a pro-Biden entity the opportunity to conduct get out the vote efforts,” the letter says. In February, Biden named Anita Dunn as a senior adviser to his campaign. Dunn, a managing director at SKD Knickerbocker, is a longtime Democratic strategist.
ConservativeChick
Article URL : https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article245759840.html