tagged w/ Campaign Finance Laws
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ANP: Congressman Vern Buchanan's campaign is under fire as former employees accuse him of corruption.
American News Project: Congressman Vern Buchanan, of the 13th district in Florida, is facing increasing trouble in his reelection campaign. A first-term congressman and a long-time autodealer, Buchanan is being sued by a remarkable number of former employees and customers at the very height of the campaign season. So far, seven separate legal complaints have been filed against Buchanan, accusing him of flouting campaign finance laws, defrauding banks and customers, and even smuggling undocumented immigrants into the country to work on his beachfront house. ANP traveled to Florida to investigate the story.ANP: Congressman Vern Buchanan's campaign is under fire as former employees... more
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Presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama, exerting his new power as leader of his party, has told the Democratic National Committee to eschew all contributions from Washington lobbyists and political action committees.
Obama has spurned money from lobbyists and PACs ever since he declared himself a candidate for president. On Thursday, he extended that policy to the DNC.
Speaking in Bristol, Va., he told a cheering crowd: "We will not take a dime from Washington lobbyists or special interest PACs. We're going to change how Washington works. They will not fund my party. They will not run our White House. And they will not drown out the voice of the American people when I'm president of the United States of America."
Obama also dispatched a close adviser, consultant Paul Tewes, to the DNC; he'll work with chairman Howard Dean, who keeps his job.
Lobbyists have been fundamental to most modern presidential campaigns — and controversial, too. But never before have they been treated this harshly, as pariahs, as Obama and Republican John McCain joust to be the reformer of Washington's sinful ways.
McCain's campaign hit back at Obama on Thursday, pointing out that he has been endorsed by the progressive group MoveOn.org, which is organized as a PAC. MoveOn this week is urging its members to contribute to Obama.
While Obama's policy seems to be meant to apply to traditional PACs that are linked to corporations, trade associations and unions, neither he nor his campaign has spelled that out. McCain's campaign suggested that Obama is guilty of "hyPACrisy."
Of course, neither candidate is totally pure. Obama rejects money from lobbyists, but he takes campaign advice from some of them. McCain is happy to take their cash, but last month he purged his staff: Lobbyists had to choose between their campaign positions and their lobbying gigs.
Obama is also out front on the issue of fundraising transparency. He said this week that from now on, reporters can come in and cover his money events. McCain, despite his reputation as the primary author of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law and other reforms, holds his fundraising events behind closed doors. When asked why, he replied, "It's because the people who are raising the money request that."
For the DNC, the bottom-line question is whether Obama's edict will hurt the budget. The answer is almost certainly no. The DNC has had serious problems raising money. While the Republican National Committee had more than $40 million cash-on-hand as of April 30, the DNC reported just over $4 million. Lobbyists and PACs account for just 7 percent of DNC fundraising.
At the same time, the Obama campaign has reinvented political fundraising. It now claims more than 1.5 million donors, who can be asked to steer a little cash to the party.
Political scientist Tony Corrado of Colby College says it's a smart trade-off: "You've given up what will probably be a couple of million dollars' worth of funding, in exchange for hopefully tens of millions of dollars in individual contributions."
So for Democrats, this may be a chance to do well while looking good.Presumptive presidential nominee Barack Obama, exerting his new power as leader of his... more
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Hillary Clinton may have a financial incentive to remain in the presidential race for a while. And she has Senator John McCain to thank for it.
Clinton loaned her struggling campaign $11 million in recent months. A little-known provision of a 2002 campaign- finance law cosponsored by McCain prevents candidates who drop out of the race from raising money after the nominating conventions to repay themselves for personal loans.
Should Clinton fail to come up with the funds by the Democratic convention in August, she'll be out the $11 million. If she quits the campaign before then, she may find it hard to get people to keep giving cash just so she can retire her debt.
That may ratchet up pressure on Clinton to cut a deal with rival Barack Obama to help her through his supporters. Obama may oblige since he would love to get her out of the race for the nomination so he could focus on the general election.Hillary Clinton may have a financial incentive to remain in the presidential race for... more
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McCain busts the FEC's spending cap, violating campaign finance law
by Joe Sudbay (DC) · 3/20/2008 09:53:00 PM ET ·
John McCain, who raised a paltry $11 million in February, has been scamming the campaign finance system. The McCain campaign's February FEC report is the here. He is currently in public finance system, which has a spending limit. The way the Associated Press tallied McCain's expenditures, he's busted the spending limit, which is a violation of the law:
McCain has now spent $58.4 million in his primary bid, surpassing the $50 million limit he would have faced if he participated in the public financing system he had been certified to join. McCain has decided not to accept the public matching funds, but the FEC wants him to assure regulators that he did not use the promise of public money as collateral for a $4 million loan.
McCain and his lawyers said the loan was secured with other collateral, thus freeing him to spend as much money as he wishes on his primary campaign. The Democratic National Committee has filed a complaint with the FEC arguing McCain cannot withdraw from the public finance system without FEC approval.
Also, McCain used his participation in the public finance system to secure his placement on the ballots in key states like Ohio. Here's the DNC's complaint.
http://www.democrats.org/a/2008/02/democratic_part_8.php
Now, AP seems to think McCain is out of the system, but that's a decision for the FEC, not John McCain or AP. And, the FEC already told McCain that he cannot withdraw from the system as the Washington Post reported last month:
The nation's top federal election official told Sen. John McCain yesterday that he cannot immediately withdraw from the presidential public financing system as he had requested, a decision that threatens to dramatically restrict his spending until the general election campaign begins in the fall.
It's serious -- and, as the Post noted, it's criminal:
Knowingly violating the spending limit is a criminal offense that could put McCain at risk of stiff fines and up to five years in prison.
McCain busts the FEC's spending cap, violating campaign finance law
by Joe... more
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