This kind of wilful neglect of our campaign finance laws is not just a simple mistake for Walker. One could give a candidate the benefit of the doubt under normal circumstances but for Walker it is a prolonged pattern going back many years. Consider some of the following (familiar sounding) details:
- Walker is the owner of what was the second highest campaign related fine in state history. In this instance Walker failed to include proper disclosures in a round of robo calls for which his campaign paid. (2005)
- Walker also failed to report at least 18 $100+ donors in 2004. County Election Commission documents also show the frustration that they had with his campaign's poor reporting in a number of areas during that same year.
- In 2002 and 2003, Walker’s campaign failed to identify the occupations of approximately 57 donors who gave more than $100 to his campaign. One of those donors was reportedly Bruce Pfaff, who eventually managed Walker’s first gubernatorial campaign. Walker received a failing grade in a 2002 analysis by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. The failing grade was based on the total number and value of improperly reported contributions. [Capital Times, 5/14/02]
At what point does Scott Walker and his campaign have to pay a serious price for this repeated pattern of ignoring our campaign finance laws? The new OWN analysis shows that the problem is actually getting much worse and as such it warrants a more severe sanction from GAB.
Posts
3 comments:
How significant is the complaint? Seems to me like it's s slap on the wrist if the GAB agrees there's been violations. Nothing too substantive here. Just lousy book keeping.
actually I wouldn't normally disagree with your statement...but i don't think that this situation is a normal one. here is why:
1. it has been a repeated issue for him for years.
2. it keeps getting worse with time.
3. it seems to be a suspicious pattern that missing info belongs to politically connected people such as the WMC chair and walkers various campaign operatives/key fundraisers ect.
Ok. Thanks for the explaination. I would agree that it is a pattern. So, whether or not it's intentional on Team Walker's part is another question. Surely, they must ask for this information when soliciting a contribution. However, I am unsure as to what constitutes "best efforts" under state election laws. It will be interesting to see what the GAB does with this.
Post a Comment