Parks registered twice for American Independent Party

The race for the 2nd District L.A. County Supervisor seat took another strange turn this week.
 
The saga began with some anonymous emails claiming that candidate Bernard Parks (D-Los Angeles), an L.A. City Councilman, had been a registered member of the small, conservative American Independent Party for ten years.
 
Tuesday, the campaign of Parks' opponent, state Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles), released voter registration records indicating that Parks had, in fact, register with the American Independent Party in both 1992 and 1996.
 
Parks' campaign claims he intended to register as an independent in advance of his campaign for L.A. Chief of Police in 1992, an office which he thought should be nonpartisan.
 
"We'll own up to an accident, but it's one of those things where no good deed goes unpunished," said Parks' son, Bernard Parks, Jr. "He believed the city of L.A. needed a police chief who was nonpartisan, so he put his own personal political beliefs aside to become an independent."
 
Fred McFarlane, a media consultant for Ridley-Thomas' campaign, dismissed the excuse and demanded further explanation.
 
"What motivated Bernard Parks to register in an extreme right-wing party and continue to be a member of that party for ten years?" McFarlane wrote in an email. "Only Parks knows the answer to that question."