Chris Kelly (entrepreneur)

State Attorney General 2010 elections
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Chris Kelly was the Chief Privacy Officer for the social networking website, Facebook, having officially resigned from the position in March 2010. In late-December 2008, he announced his candidacy for the statewide office of attorney general, the seat being vacated by Democrat Jerry Brown, who is running for governor, in the 2010 election. He went on to lose the Democratic nomination to San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris on Tuesday, June 8, 2010 after placing second with nearly sixteen percent of the vote.

Education

• Graduated from Bellarmine College Preparatory (1987)
• Bachelor's degree, Georgetown (1991)
• Master's degree, Yale University (1992) in political theory
• Juris Doctorate degree, Harvard University (1997)

Professional experience

Shortly after receiving his law degree, Kelly worked as a law clerk for federal judge Barry Moskowski. He continued to be employed within the public sector, first as a policy advisor for the United States Domestic Policy Council and then for the Department of Education under President Bill Clinton. Also during this time he helped form AmeriCorps, a division of the Corporation for National and Community Service, a national service program designed to engage Americans in a variety of service. Kelly then joined the private practice law firms of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and later Baker & McKenzie from 2001 until 2004. He served as the Chief Privacy Officer for the social networking site, Facebook, for five years beginning in September 2005.

Controversies

Campaign stalker accusations

Two days following the conclusion of the 2010 Democratic State Convention in Los Angeles, California, San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris released a memo suggesting that Chris Kelly's campaign had deliberately sent a staffer with a video camera to record everything every word she said and every individual she interacted with. In campaigning, this is called tracking and is a commonly used campaign tactic all over the country. The Harris campaign, however, labeled this stunt as a "cheap invasion of Harris's privacy."

Though refusing to admit whether or not he had in fact done what Harris's campaign had accused him of doing, Kelly argued in response that the San Francisco DA had sent her own stalkers to harass him. These individuals, he said, followed him "around the convention, complete with Nixon masks and signs." They had even crashed a party he held later that evening, where upon his spokesman claims he bought them drinks because "he's classy like that."

FPPC complaint

Kelly's Democratic primary challenger, Kamala Harris, filed a complaint on Monday, May 24, 2010, with the state's political watchdog agency, the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC), alleging that the former Facebook CPO "violated state election law in donating nearly $10 million to his campaign for attorney general." The accusation specifically targets his sale of private stock in Facebook to a Delaware-based private equity firm, FBI Investments, a financial transaction Kelly's spokesman argues is routine and in perfect compliance with the law.

The Harris campaign, however, disagrees, arguing that the state campaign finance laws bind Kelly to treat the sale as a political contribution as "it was obtained for a political purpose from a private equity firm, not a commercial lending institution." According to the state agency's website, the FFPC would had at least fourteen days in which to decide how best to proceed with the complaint. Though the Harris campaign first filed the grievance on May 24, given the Memorial Day holiday weekend that immediately followed it and that there were only eleven actual business days between the filing date and the primary election on June 8, it was not clear whether the FFPC would respond in time. However, on the morning of the state primary election, the state political watchdog group dismissed the matter explaining that they had "found insufficient evidence to warrant further investigation."

Elections

2010

See also: California Attorney General election, 2010

2010 Race for Attorney General - Democratic Primary
Party		Candidate	Vote Percentage
	Democratic Party	Kamala Harris	33.1%
	Democratic Party	Chris Kelly	15.9%
	Democratic Party	Alberto Torrico	14.9%
	Democratic Party	Ted Lieu	10.5%
	Democratic Party	Rocky Delgadillo	10.1%
	Democratic Party	Pedro Nava	9.9%
	Democratic Party	Mike Schmier	5.6%
Total Votes			1,676,360

Personal

Kelly currently resides in California with his wife, Jennifer Carrico, and their son, Aidan.

Awards

• Robert W. Leach Victim Advocate Award (2009) from the Association of Deputy District Attorneys (ADDA)

External links

• Chris Kelly for Attorney General Campaign website
• Chris Kelly's Facebook profile
• Chris Kelly's Twitter account