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Opinion: House leader Hoyer steps in to help distressed Laura Richardson

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House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer today defended a California Democrat facing ethics questions over her personal finances, while appearing to downplay his involvement in a fundraiser for her this week.

Rep. Laura Richardson’s Sacramento house was sold in a foreclosure last month, according to news reports, and she has gone into default on properties in San Pedro and Long Beach. She still owed $9,000 in county taxes on the Sacramento house.

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The Long Beach Press-Telegram reports that in 1995 Richardson stiffed a local mechanic on a $735 bill to repair her heavily damaged BMW, and then had it towed to another body shop and abandoned it. Then a member of the Long Beach City Council, she began using a city-owned car, according to the Press-Telegram, which she continued to drive for five days after joining the California State Assembly.

The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has called on the House Ethics Committee to investigate.

Hoyer, known in political circles as a prodigious fundraiser, is hosting a Capitol Hill event on Wednesday to help Richardson retire her campaign debt. Matthew Hay Brown has the rest of the story over at the Swamp.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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