A liberal watchdog group is seeking an investigation into Inland Empire Rep. Ken Calvert, the longest-serving Republican in California’s Congressional delegation.

The campaign finance reform group End Citizens United filed a complaint Tuesday with the Office of Congressional Ethics alleging that Calvert failed to disclose information about various rental properties that he owns in Riverside County.

The complaint follows a Times story on Calvert’s use of the legislative process known as earmarking to secure more than $100 million in taxpayer funds for his district, including more than $16 million for transportation projects within a few miles of his own rental properties.

“This is a meritless complaint from a far-left super PAC that’s endorsed Ken’s opponent, and worse — one that gets the facts wrong,” said Calvin Moore, a spokesman for Calvert’s reelection campaign.

A spokesman for End Citizens United said the group is a traditional non-connected political action committee that is allowed to make campaign contributions to candidates. Super PACs can spend unlimited amounts to support or oppose candidates, but cannot give directly to their campaigns.

Questions over Calvert’s real estate investments have resurfaced as the longtime congressman faces off against Democrat Will Rollins, a former federal prosecutor. California’s 41st Congressional district, which includes Corona and Palm Springs, is considered one of the country’s most competitive races.

The Times found that Calvert failed to disclose the purchase of an automotive repair center in Corona that he acquired in 2016, an omission that his office described as a clerical error. The property sits about a mile from a bridge that received $2 million in earmarked funds through Calvert’s office.

Calvert’s office said Calvert bought the property with his brothers for $2.25 million in September 2016 and had an 11% stake in the deal, valued at $247,000.

Moore said that Calvert “has always gone above and beyond to provide transparency in his financial disclosure statements.” Calvert filed six years of amended financial disclosures last week to disclose his purchase of the automotive repair center.

The complaint filed Tuesday also alleged that Calvert failed to report the purchase of two other properties, in Corona and Palm Springs. Jason Gagnon, a spokesman for Calvert’s office, said one property was disclosed properly and the other was a personal loan that Calvert disclosed “even though he was not required to do so.”

The Office of Congressional Ethics is an independent group with no subpoena power that reviews allegations against members of the House of Representatives and, in some cases, refers cases to the House Ethics Committee for further investigation.

FIRST ON FOX: Secretary of State Antony Blinken is being called on to freeze aid to Afghanistan following revelations that the assistance could be going to the Taliban. 

A recent report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), a government entity conducting oversight of U.S. aid to the country, determined that two of five bureaus within the Department of State (DOS) couldn’t prove their compliance with counterterrorism vetting.

“Collectively, State could not demonstrate their compliance with its partner vetting requirements on awards that disbursed at least $293 million in Afghanistan,” the report stated. 

Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., said the reported oversight was “deeply alarming” in a letter to Blinken and urged him to stop Afghanistan aid until the issue is addressed. 

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The failure of the DOS to fully comply with counterterrorism vetting standards “has strengthened and enriched the Taliban and its terrorist affiliates,” he said. “Further, when funds that are intended for humanitarian and development purposes end up supporting groups that perpetuate violence and instability, U.S. national security interests in the region are significantly undermined.”

“It is imperative that State take immediate remedial and comprehensive action to rectify these issues to prevent similar occurrences in the future,” wrote Braun. 

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Taliban holds a military parade with equipment captured from U.S. army in Kandahar, Afghanistan on November 8, 2021.  (Photo by Murteza Khaliqi/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Further, SIGAR found that $10.9 million in U.S. taxpayer money was paid to the Taliban-controlled government by 38 of the U.S.’s 65 implementing partners. However, the report said the amount was “likely only a fraction of the total amount of U.S. assistance funds provided to the Taliban in taxes, fees, duties, and utilities because UN agencies receiving U.S. funds did not collect data or provide relevant information about their subawardees’ payments.”

In his letter, Braun questioned Blinken over what measures were “being taken against those individuals responsible for the failure to comply with vetting requirements and documentation retention” and asked for a description of what improvements would be made to its “documentation and record-keeping practices to avoid lapses.” 

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Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., said the oversight was ‘deeply alarming’ in a letter to Blinken, pictured  right, and urged him to stop Afghanistan aid until the issue is addressed.  (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

The U.S. has been the largest international contributor of support to Afghans after their government collapsed, allowing the Taliban to take power following the disastrous withdrawal of American troops in August 2021 under President Biden. 

According to SIGAR, more than $2.8 billion has been provided by the U.S. in both humanitarian and development aid to the country since the withdrawal.

DOS did not provide comment to Fox News Digital in time for publication. 

Before Tuesday, vice presidential contender Tim Walz was hardly a household name. Now that the Minnesota governor has been the subject of round-the-clock news interviews and viral videos, he has also picked up a new nickname. Enter “Tampon Tim,” conservatives’ response to the 2024 state law Walz signed that requires public schools to provide menstrual products in student bathrooms.

It hardly feels like much of a “gotcha” moniker, though. Periods have been a mainstream public policy priority for the better part of the last decade. And California has been at the forefront. Since 2017, the Legislature has passed a series of laws — including ones that eliminate the state sales tax on menstrual products; mandate the provision of menstrual products in all public school restrooms for students in grades 6-12, as well as at California state universities; and require county jails and state prisons to provide free access to tampons and pads to people who are incarcerated.

California has also proposed legislation to improve public health disclosure requirements around the ingredients in menstrual products — an especially timely effort in light of recent headlines: A study last month out of UC Berkeley shows that toxic chemicals including lead and arsenic were found in several name-brand tampons.

While California is a leader, it is hardly an outlier. It is one of 30 states that have scrapped the “tampon tax” in the past eight years; the latest to join the roster is Texas, with a signature from Republican Gov. Greg Abbott on a bill that garnered notable bipartisan support. Across the country, 28 states also mandate the provision of menstrual products in public schools; another 25 states require the same in their jails and prisons.

In an era of often intractable political polarization, menstrual policy has proven something of a unicorn. Hardly the butt of jokes, “menstrual equity” is a bipartisan agenda on which the two major parties have found common ground — and agree that ameliorating the economic burden and easing the stigma of menstruation is plain common sense.

So why the Tampon Tim uproar? Mostly it is about the language of the Minnesota law, which states that pads and tampons must be available to “all menstruating students” and “in restrooms regularly used by students in grades 4 to 12,” rather than qualifying that only “female restrooms” stock the products. Though an amendment to alter the wording failed, it did not set off a culture war, nor did it stymie support for the bill. One Republican lawmaker, Dean Urdahl, remarked, “Just talking with my wife and family members, they felt like it was an important issue I should support.”

Making menstruation into an internet meme seems destined to backfire now too. To begin with, who but silly preteens does that? As Walz would say, it is just plain weird.

Second, recent elections and polling show that reproductive health and rights are wildly popular to voters. As a presidential candidate, Kamala Harris is a strong, steady voice — including on an array of adjacent issues like menstrual literacy and the need for data protection regarding period tracking apps. (I joined a White House discussion with her on those topics after the Supreme Court decision that reversed Roe vs. Wade.)

Republicans know their positions on reproductive rights are out of step with popular opinion — so much so that they barely whispered it at their national convention last month. They have more substantive damage control to do for their own vice presidential candidate. JD Vance’s controversial commentary about “childless cat ladies” and assisted fertility might just be bested by his own congressional voting record — which includes … wait for it … enabling menstrual cycle surveillance by state law enforcement agencies. And lest we forget Trump’s own crude remarks on the matter: On Aug. 8, 2015, he accused newscaster Megyn Kelly of having “blood coming out of her wherever.”

Gone are the days when periods were a punchline. In 2024, they may well prove to be the most powerful political rallying cry. Former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton posted this week that it was “nice of the Trump camp to help publicize Gov. Tim Walz’s compassionate and common-sense policy.”

She added, “Let’s do this everywhere.” Hear, hear.

Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, executive director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center at New York University School of Law, is the author of “Periods Gone Public: Taking a Stand for Menstrual Equity” and the forthcoming “Period. Full Stop. The Politics of Menopause.”