California Rep. Lois Capps’ tight re-election bid took another hit Thursday as her opponent accused her of having waited years earlier in her career to report more than a half-million dollars in income on required House of Representatives financial-disclosure forms.

The charges from former California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado, bidding to unseat the seventh-term Central Coast incumbent, are the latest flap between him and Capps over how they’ve handled their personal finances and taxes.

Maldonado’s family is embroiled in a lawsuit with the Internal Revenue Service over $470,000 in business deductions and a dispute over $3.6 million in allegedly underreported income. The Capps campaign has been running TV ads highlighting the problems.

This week, Maldonado seized on documents showing that Capps, over an eight-year period, left off the annual disclosure reports $512,813 in income from two state pension funds. She acknowledged the omissions more than four years ago. Read more at mcclatchydc.com »