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AS PREDICTED, CAMPAIGN FINANCE BOARD DISMISSES COMPLAINT AGAINST RITCHIE
By Michael B. Brodkorb | December 12, 2007
"Minnesota's campaign regulators won't investigate DFL Secretary of State Mark Ritchie.
A Republican who got a campaign solicitation from Ritchie after giving his e-mail address at an official state event had asked the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board to look into the matter." Source: Associated Press, December 12, 2007
Click here for complete story.
As I wrote over a week ago, "I'm not sure that any campaign finance laws were broken, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this complaint is dismissed."
The Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board doesn't have jurisdiction to enforce the laws Ritchie may have violated. We'll have to wait and see what the legislative auditor reports.
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Topics: Uncategorized | 19 Comments »
19 Responses to “AS PREDICTED, CAMPAIGN FINANCE BOARD DISMISSES COMPLAINT AGAINST RITCHIE”
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December 12th, 2007 at 5:53 PM
Tomczak’s complaint was poorly written and proved nothing. In short, it wasn’t a serious complaint but just an attempt to harass Ritchie. In the process, Tomczak wasted a lot of official time which translates into tax payers’ dollars. I wonder what the Taxpayers League thinks of this squandering of our hard earned money?
December 12th, 2007 at 6:15 PM
If the Auditor finds that his campaign obtianed the email list improperly – as in, from Ritchie’s official office – they would be able to do something maybe.
December 12th, 2007 at 6:19 PM
The Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board doesn’t have jurisdiction to enforce the laws Ritchie may have violated.
Watch how this is touted tonight and tomorrow by DFL’ers and the media. They’ll try to use it to bury the story. “See, he did nothing wrong…”
December 12th, 2007 at 10:07 PM
Good call MDE. You hit the nail on the head with this one.
What I do find interesting is what a huge loophole this is for big government types and incumbents.
Government can trample all over the the business community with its unchecked power, yet corporations can’t legally participate in the process.
Individuals can only give a minimal amount, and their names and employers have to be reported.
But now we see that any old incumbent can use taxpayer resources at their will to keep themselves in power and the campaign finance board has no mechanism to address this abuse.
What a huge loophole for incumbents.
With this series of abuses (and they are serious abuses, they will just be handled by a different agency than the CFB), perhaps the Ritchie scandal can provide our legislators with some direction for some real campaign finance reform to stop this sort of abuse.
December 13th, 2007 at 9:04 AM
Yeah for Mark! One success for Democracy.
I am still convinced that all of this harrassment of Mark Ritchie is an attempt to remove a capable electoral watch dog before the next Presidential election.
December 13th, 2007 at 9:18 AM
There is nothing the guy has done, ever, to suggest he is capable of being an “electoral watchdog.” In fact, the opposite is true.
December 13th, 2007 at 10:20 AM
Alexis and Sheri,
So you are on record somewhere of protesting to the DFL when DFLers file complaints against their political opponents with public agencies. Please provide me with the date(s) in which you made such a protest.
Given that the DFL has done this for so many decades that it has turned this practice into an art form and given your objection to filing complaints with public agencies, I’m certain that the two of you are on record as opposing this DFL practice.
Or are you?
December 13th, 2007 at 12:12 PM
Please give us an example of a Democratic complaint as utterly lacking in merit as Tomczak’s complaint to the campaign board. It was a rant, not a formal complaint. If I’d ever had a student hand in something that poorly written, I would have handed it back to do over. Whoever wrote the complaint to the legislative auditor did know how to write a complaint, so clearly it wasn’t written by Tomczak. Funny Tomczak didn’t use that as a model–maybe he didn’t read the complaint before signing it.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:37 PM
So Tomczak can’t write a complaint. That doesn’t make Ritchie any less guilty. Let’s wait for Jim Nobles report.
December 13th, 2007 at 1:15 PM
(hehe)
December 13th, 2007 at 1:43 PM
And, if you want to see some bad writing, check out Ritchie’s illegal fundraising email.
Michael, where is that thing? It’s worth posting again as a refresher for all of us and as a project for Alex deT to critique.
December 13th, 2007 at 3:40 PM
I’m still waiting for examples of frivolous Democratic complaints against Republican office holders.
December 14th, 2007 at 6:54 PM
“Government can trample all over the the business community with its unchecked power, yet corporations can’t legally participate in the process.”
In fact, corporations have a much larger voice in our government, due to increased access to government officials and the additional legal and public relations resources corporations have available.
Corporations are the ones importing poisonous toys from China, and exporting jobs to third world countries. Americans are turning to reverse mortgages to pay for their retirement, as corporations have cashed out their pensions. The giant sucking sound you hear is money being vacuumed out of the American middle class.
“There is nothing the guy has done, ever, to suggest he is capable of being an “electoral watchdog.†In fact, the opposite is true.”
Mark Ritchie helped found and run a nationwide electoral participation effort. Ever see a “November 2″ bumper sticker? That was Mark.
December 17th, 2007 at 7:38 AM
‘Mark Ritchie helped found and run a nationwide electoral participation effort. Ever see a “November 2″ bumper sticker? That was Mark.’
And that was so special. Because nobody knew that date, or could have predicted it, and it wasn’t even in any of the various media. Oh yeah, he is so worthy.
January 8th, 2008 at 2:13 AM
[...] This is called “lowering expectations.” The reason why MDE’s post didn’t start with “Much like the Campaign Finance Board complaint I’m hearing rumors that when the Legislative Auditors report is out tomorrow it’s going to be a wash at best, and maybe not even get a written reprimand,” is because 1. that would be honest and 2. it wouldn’t fit into the ‘theme’ he’s been working on for nigh on 70 posts now. [...]
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