Three candidates for the 48th Congressional District in San Diego have campaign website pages that allow them to avoid campaign finance rules meant to prevent coordination with groups that are not affiliated with the campaign but spend money on their behalf.
The practice known as “redboxing” is widespread.
“Groups and candidates are finding ways to work together to skirt the spirit of the law, if not the letter of the law in some cases,” said Michael Beckel with Issue One, a nonprofit based in D.C. that was founded in 2013 to reduce the influence of money in politics.
Beckel said that spending money in coordination with campaigns should be treated like a contribution that comes with limits. But he said those rules are difficult to enforce when independent expenditure-only political committees, commonly known as super PACs, can get what are essentially coordinated communications from campaign websites.
Ammar Campa-Najjar, Brandon Riker, and San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert are all running to represent the 48th Congressional District. This was one of the five Republican-held seats that voters targeted with Proposition 50 last November.
Current U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa, a Republican, is retiring rather than run for reelection in the newly drawn district. He endorsed County Supervisor Jim Desmond to replace him, who is running against a divided field of Democrats.
Campa-Najjar, Riker, and von Wilpert are considered leading candidates on the Democratic side, having each raised more than $1 million for this election.
All three candidates also have publicly available “media” pages on their websites that include specific instructions about messaging and demographic targets. The campaign website for Jim Desmond does not have a similar “media” page.
Marni von Wilpert’s campaign website media page, as of Monday, May 18, says, “Voters need to hear both negative and positive messaging.”
“For Positive Messaging,” the website continues, “Voters in the Los Angeles and San Diego media markets in CA48 need to see 1) positive ads first and foremost online, 2) then on streaming devices, and 3) then in direct mail.”
Then, there is a list of targeted demographics and geographic areas by ZIP code.
Brandon Riker’s campaign website has a similar page that also says, “What Voters Need to Know.”
“Likely primary Democrats and Democratic leaning Independent voters in California’s 48th Congressional District, within the San Diego media market, need to READ in mail, the following message,” the website reads.
“Real change starts with ending corruption,” the page continues. “Unlike his opponents, Brandon Riker refuses every dollar of corporate PAC money.”
The webpage also attacks Riker’s democratic opponents with the following lines:
“Voters in CA-48 also need to read in mail questioning who the other candidates actually work for? Marni von Wilpert has a documented pattern of taking corporate money and voting accordingly.”
“Ammar Campa-Najjar is a perennial candidate propped up by billionaire-funded super PAC money, after multiple failed campaigns in other districts,” Riker’s website continues.
The page ends with a demographic to target as well, saying, “...particularly Registered Democrats 50+ and NPP / Independent Voters in the San Diego media market would benefit from learning these facts.”
And Ammar Campa-Najjar’s campaign website also has a “media” page that at one point included similar demographic targets and messaging suggestions. Until recently, that page included the following information:
“Starting in Week 8, voters in the NEW CA-48 need to see ads that repeat Ammar Campa-Najjar’s name as many times as possible, conveying the message below on the following platforms,” the website read.
“1. San Diego broadcast. 2. San Diego cable (MSNBC/CNN + programs overindexing to voters age 50+). 3. LA cable (MSNBC/CNN + programs overindexing to voters age 50+),” this page continued.
The page then listed demographic targets in different locations similar to the von Wilpert campaign website. Campa-Najjar’s targets included “Men voters age 50+” and programs overindexing to voters in that group.
As for the message, the website page read, “The son of Palestinian and Mexican immigrants, Ammar Campa-Najjar has served our country as a Navy Reserve Officer and Obama Administration official.”
“In Congress, Ammar Campa-Najjar will take on Trump’s dangerous and cruel agenda by taking on ICE and overhauling our broken immigration system, ending the war and lowering costs on gas and groceries, and protecting Medicare and Medicaid while lowering healthcare costs and protecting access to reproductive healthcare,” the web page continued.
That page was updated to include far less specific information, but still ends with, “Please check back here after significant communication for future messages that would run through Election Day on the above platforms.”
“Redboxing” is growing increasingly common across the country, according to the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit organization that advocates for democratic reforms focused on voting rights and campaign finance.
The LA Times recently reported that gubernatorial candidate Xavier Beccera has a similar “redbox” on his campaign website.
And the 2024 journal article titled “Coordination in Plain Sight: The Breadth and Uses of "Redboxing" in Congressional Elections” from University of Chicago researcher Gabriel Foy-Sutherland found that more than 200 federal election campaigns engaged in “redboxing” in the 2022 election cycle.
The journal also found that those candidates who used a redbox “frequently benefited from super PAC spending that was hundreds of times greater than candidates who did not redbox.”
“Everyone in the campaign world understands that this is a way to share information but get around the rules against coordinating,” Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor told KPBS. Hasen directs the Safeguarding Democracy Project which works to promote free and fair elections.
In the past few months, material that came from outside these campaigns in the 48th District race has directly quoted these media pages.
The Marni von Wilpert campaign website says negative messaging should include the following;
“Ammar Campa-Najjar isn’t just a flip flopper on the issues that matter, he’s also a con man. He’s run and lost three campaigns from four different addresses under two different names. He opposed Trump’s impeachment, supported Trump’s border wall, donated to an extreme gun rights group, and said, quote, “I ran for Congress to work with Trump.”
A campaign mailer attacking Campa-Najjar that said it was sent by a group called Veterans for Truth PAC included those same critical talking points listed in the same order.
The mailer also mentions Campa-Najjar’s “three failed campaigns” and a quote next to a picture of Campa-Najjar saying, “I ran for Congress to work with Trump.”
“Our campaign follows the law, Period, Full Stop,” said Dan Rottenstreich, a representative of the Marni von Wilpert campaign. “This kind of publicly available campaign materials are common in competitive races across the nation.”
But both of these campaigns appear to have skirted coordination rules to supply outside groups with campaign material that’s already been deployed to likely voters.
The Ammar Campa-Najjar campaign website also closely resembled parts of a text that was sent by Serving CA, a super PAC that Times of San Diego reported is supported by Jeff Bezos and Irwin Jacobs, the grandfather of Campa-Najjar’s partner and current U.S. Rep. Sara Jacobs.
The Campa-Najjar website says, “Ammar Campa-Najjar is a U.S. Navy Reserve officer. Any references to his military rank, service, or photographs in uniform are for identification purposes only and do not imply endorsement by the Department of War or the Department of the Navy.”
Serving CA sent a text that included a picture of Campa-Najjar in his military uniform, with a nearly identical disclaimer:
“Ammar Campa-Najjar is a U.S. Navy Reserve officer. Any references to his military rank, service, or photographs in uniform are for identification purposes only and do not imply endorsement by the Department of War or the Department of the Navy.”
Campa-Najjar was recently notified by the Department of Defense that his use of images in uniform violated Pentagon rules and warranted corrective action.
This disclaimer appeared on his website’s redbox within days of a KPBS report that the Navy was “looking into” Campa-Najjar’s use of military imagery in his campaign.
“It's a common practice that's being done by every candidate, on the Democratic side, who is, you know, in the front running position, communicating to folks what we want to be talked about,” Ammar Campa-Najjar told KPBS in an interview.
Campa-Najjar said it was one of his goals to “get money out of politics” when KPBS interviewed candidates for the 48th District. This primary election already has millions of dollars pouring in from outside groups, according to the Union Tribune.
“I want to be in Congress to get rid of super PACs, to overturn Citizens United,” Campa-Najjar said. “But just like [with] Prop 50 and redistricting, the whole reason we got into that fight against Texas is because we cannot unilaterally disarm. We have to fight fire with fire, get into office, take power, and reform this broken, corrosive system.”
Campa-Najjar said that his campaign was responding to the redboxes attacking him on other campaign websites. He said that his redbox has only shown positive messages about his campaign – never attacks on other candidates.
The Riker campaign declined to comment. KPBS has not reviewed any material that mirrors the Riker campaign website.
The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 created limits on campaign donations. The Federal Elections Commission, or FEC, was created in 1974 as the agency responsible for enforcing those rules.
Among those rules are limits to how much money an individual, corporation, or other entity can contribute to a political campaign. But super PACs can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money – as long as that spending is not coordinated with campaigns.
Coordinated communications are subject to contribution limits of up to $5,000 per campaign, according to the FEC. But in recent years, campaigns across the country have found a way to circumvent those rules over coordination, including in the campaign this year for California’s 48th District.
Beckel with Issue One said just because it’s a common practice doesn’t mean it’s legal; but he said the FEC, supposedly the “top cop on the beat,” is deadlocked on cases about coordination rules, having repeatedly failed to reach the four votes necessary to investigate complaints.
In 2023, the FEC declined to investigate allegations of illegal coordination between the John Hickenlooper senate campaign and Senate Majority PAC citing “resources that would be needed to further pursue the allegations.”
Today it does not have a quorum to hold votes, with only two active commissioners. President Donald Trump, with confirmation from Congress, is responsible for filling those vacancies.
The Campaign Legal Center says it "enthusiastically endorses” the Stop Illegal Campaign Coordination Act introduced by Rep. Jill Tokunda (D-HI) that would require the FEC assess spending from outside groups for consistency with instructions or guidance from the campaign or a political party.
If advertisements or other spending are consistent with those instructions they would be presumed to be unlawful coordination under this law.
But Beckel said there could be some difficulty in getting Congress to approve stricter rules on their own campaigns.
“Congressional leadership, essentially since the 1970s when the FEC was created, have had a lot of say in who is getting nominated to serve in these roles, who is setting the rules that govern the campaigns that get them elected," Beckel said. “So it's a complicated dynamic.”
The California Fair Political Practices Commission did not respond to a request for comment.
Serving CA and Veterans for Truth PAC could not be reached for comment.
Editor’s note: Irwin Jacobs is a financial supporter of KPBS. The KPBS news operation maintains editorial independence from KPBS executives, SDSU and corporate underwriters and donors.
