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MDE WEEKEND ROUNDUP: ON KELLIHER
By Luke Hellier | December 14, 2009
The St. Paul Pioneer Press and Minnesota Public Radio reported that Kelliher, the speaker of the state House from Minneapolis, asked campaign donors to contribute to the DFL Party to help her buy the party’s voter list. Kelliher’s campaign had already exceeded its limit for donations in a non-election year.
The GOP complaint seeks “a full and complete accounting†of when the donations were made to Kelliher’s campaign, who made the donations and for what amounts.
The campaign has reportedly corrected the mistake and is paying for the list with its own funds. MPR’s Polinaut blog reported this afternoon that Kelliher plans to write to the CFPD acknowledging her campaign made a mistake with the donor contributions.
What makes this a little different from a run-of-the-mill “inside baseball” spat is that other DFL gubernatorial candidates are more disgusted with Kelliher, and perhaps their own party, than Republicans are.
Minnesota House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher on Friday faced a potential campaign finance investigation into a fundraising snafu and at least one call to resign her legislative post.
The developments came after an internal row among a crowded field of 11 Democratic gubernatorial candidates spilled into public view. Kelliher, who is seeking the DFL nomination for governor, arranged for donors to help purchase a pricey voter database by sending money directly to the state Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party.
The arrangement appears to violate Minnesota’s campaign finance laws, and state Republicans moved to capitalize on the revelations by asking a state campaign oversight board to investigate.
Kelliher said her campaign directed three donors to give to the DFL Party to help her pay for using the party’s voter database, after getting party approval to do it. Party attorneys later said the donations were illegal and returned $1,500 in contributions to the donors. She said three people, Ruth Usem, Blanche Hawkins and Rich Ginsberg contributed $500 each to the party on Kelliher’s behalf. Kelliher said Ginsberg, a lobbyist for several groups including the Mille Lacs Band of the Ojibwe and Hennepin County, already gave the maximum contribution of $500 to Kelliher’s campaign.
Kelliher said she will accept any penalty the Campaign Finance Board imposes on her campaign.
Margaret Anderson Kelliher, speaker of the Minnesota House and a leading DFL gubernatorial candidate, is under fire from Democrats and Republicans for a deal with her party that may trigger a state campaign finance investigation.
The Minnesota GOP filed a formal complaint against Kelliher on Friday for her arrangement to have donors pay the DFL directly for access to a prized voter list.
Three donors wrote checks for $500 apiece to the DFL in September.
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