Former Irvine City Councilman Anthony Kuo is looking to rejoin the dais in a special election for the last open seat on city council, advertising himself as a businessman on the ballot.
But none of his campaign materials reference his day job: a manager in the Orange County Auditor-Controller’s office, where he works at least 40 hours a week according to his time cards reviewed by Voice of OC.
When asked about the issue, Kuo said he just never stops working.
“I really don’t have much of a life,” Kuo said in a Wednesday interview. “I just occupy all hours of the day doing work.”
Yet Kuo confirmed that he works less hours as a businessman than a county employee.
Businessman or business owner is one of the most common ballot designations according to Jodi Balma, a political science professor at Fullerton College who closely monitors local politics.
She also said part of what makes the title attractive is how hard it is to challenge in court.
“What is a businessman? If I have an Etsy shop, am I a small business owner?” Balma said. “That one’s really hard to challenge … but it’s not their primary job if they have a full-time job.”
Mike Moodian, a political science professor at Chapman University who also monitors local politics, echoed something similar, pointing out how candidates are explicitly asked to state their primary job for the past year on the ballot.
“If your job has been working full time in the public sector, I think a reasonable person could conclude that’s not a businessman,” Moodian said in a Wednesday interview. “People will often try to intentionally be vague where they’ll provide a statement that’s not inaccurate but also not one that fully discloses what they’ve been doing the past 12 months.”
It’s not uncommon for candidates to hide that they work for the government, said Balma, adding many candidates recognize there are preferred ballot designations – and a government employee isn’t one of them.
“Whether or not that’s a positive or negative is up to the voters to decide,” Balma said in a Wednesday interview.
“But it is a little bit suspicious that so many run away from that and don’t disclose that in their statements, in their campaign materials, on their websites,” she said.
Kuo – a registered Republican – joined the Auditor-Controller’s office full time in 2017 and is still employed there at a salary of over $120,000 to “oversee and manage all front desk duties,” and “address building issues.”
To see a complete list of his job duties provided by the auditor-controller, click here.
County employees are allowed to obtain outside work as long as it does not offer a conflict of interest, according to auditor-controller spokesperson Cynthia Kaui.
“There is no prohibition against Auditor-Controller employees engaging in outside employment in their off-duty hours so long as such employment does not conflict with their duties as an employee,” Kaui said in a statement.
Right now, Kuo said his second job is as an educational director for the Southwest Riverside County Association of Realtors, where he “produces, facilitates, and manages education programs including seminars, workshops, and partner events throughout the year,” according to their website.
Kuo claims he spends about 30 hours a week on work for the organization.
When asked for specific events he has organized, he pointed to monthly meetings of the group’s professional development committee and said he planned other meetings like a discussion on residential solar panels and an economic forecast.
His name is also registered to a public relations company via the California Secretary of State dubbed Podium Strategies, where he’s the sole employee, in which he disclosed making as much as $100,000 on his 2023 county conflict of interest disclosure form.
He says that company is no longer around.
He’s also not the only politician who’s faced a similar question.
Balma highlighted multiple cases where public employees didn’t advertise the fact they took home a taxpayer funded check.
In 2022, Anaheim City Council candidate Al Jabbar was Supervisor Doug Chaffee’s chief of staff – a fact he didn’t mention in most of his campaign material.
In 2018, Young Kim ran for Congress for the first time as a business owner despite the fact that she was working for then-Congressman Ed Royce.
Moodian also pointed out the case of Steve Rocco, who ran for and won a seat on the Orange Unified School district board in 2004 under the title of “educator,” despite not having worked as a substitute teacher in years.
“There are a lot of watchers in these elections, but in others like school boards and water boards, sometimes people aren’t paying attention,” Moodian said. “You can get a blatantly misleading statement on the ballot.”
But there aren’t many enforcement mechanisms in place to fact check ballot statements.
“The (Registrar of Voters’) job is not to fact check every ballot designation,” Balma said. “But the reality is that business owner is the most popular and it’s very vague on who qualifies and who doesn’t. But it’s also not his real job.”
Moodian said there’s only one real way to cut off a misleading ballot statement – a lawsuit.
“Any member of the public can go to court and challenge the ballot statement,” Moodian said. “They’ll write what they want even though the instructions are very clear and it’s up to the public to challenge it.”
Noah Biesiada is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at nbiesiada@voiceofoc.org.
