Posted on 09/05/2007 8:16:45 AM PDT by freespirited
WASHINGTON — North Carolina elections officials are investigating whether a national Democratic campaign organization violated the state's ban on corporate donations.
Investigators are looking at donations by individuals and North Carolina corporations to the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, a national group that works to get Democrats elected to statehouses around the nation. The committee has given more than $750,000 to the North Carolina Democratic Party since 2004.
At issue: Did the money that the group routed to North Carolina come only from individuals or did it include corporate money, in violation of North Carolina law?
Michael Sargeant, the campaign committee's executive director, said the organization "segregates the funds it raises into different accounts." By doing so, it makes sure that corporate and individual contributions aren't mixed and that state laws such as North Carolina's — and similar laws in some two dozen states — are followed.
He said contributions that ended up in North Carolina were put in a separate Democratic committee fund that was registered with the state as a political action committee that didn't accept corporate or union money.
But that might not pass muster with the state Board of Elections.
Kim Strach, the deputy director of the board, said it wasn't enough for a group to "segregate" donations. The checks must be made out to the state committee, Strach said. Otherwise, the money is considered to have been raised by the DLCC, which accepts prohibited corporate money.
Sargeant said the national committee had complied with "both the letter and spirit" of state law. He said the contributions were similar to previous ones by Republican groups.
The board began examining the national committee more than a year ago, prompted by a complaint filed by Republicans.
The organization is of renewed interest to investigators because of its ties to Jim Black, the former North Carolina Democratic House speaker who's serving a prison term for accepting unrelated illegal donations. Black was a director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee from about 2000 to 2004, a period when it took in more than $100,000 from North Carolina corporations and had annual fundraisers at the Pinehurst Resort and Country Club. Money came from industries with business before lawmakers in Raleigh.
Strach said investigators hoped to reach a conclusion in the next few weeks. She said the board could go as far as prohibiting contributions to North Carolina from the national committee. A penalty, if warranted, would be decided by the elections board. North Carolina law says the penalty won't exceed three times the amount of the illegal contribution.
By determining whether there were enough individual donations intended for North Carolina state races, investigators will get insight into another question: Were the corporate dollars raised from North Carolina businesses meant to be funneled back to North Carolina to influence state officials? The North Carolina Democratic Party uses much of the money on its most competitive state legislative races.
Sargeant said the committee didn't take donations with the promise that they'd go back to the states of origin or to particular candidates or committees.
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee and its North Carolina fund share Washington addresses and staff. Caroline Valand, who's now the executive director of the North Carolina Democratic Party, was the national caucus director and political director for the national committee and the assistant treasurer of the group's North Carolina committee. Valand declined a request for an interview.
"It's so easy to commingle funds that most states don't even bother investigating," said Craig Holman, the campaign finance lobbyist with Public Citizen, a government watchdog group in Washington. "Even though the money may not be easily traceable, the beneficiaries know where the money came from."
ABOUT THE DLCC
Founded in 1993, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee is a national organization that's responsible for helping to elect Democratic state legislators across the country.
The group says it helped Democrats gain seats at the local level in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, including flipping 14 legislative chambers to Democratic control.
Because it doesn't give to national candidates, like members of Congress, it doesn't have to file with the Federal Election Commission. Known as a 527 group because of its tax-exempt status, it does have to report to the Internal Revenue Service.
The DLCC can accept corporate contributions of unlimited amounts.
To do business in a state such as North Carolina, which bans corporate money, it has to set up a separate political action committee registered with the state that accepts only contributions of less than $4,000 from individuals.
Surprise? NOT!!!!!
Since the Raleigh News & Observer is a McClatchy paper, they should be covering this. There should be lots of coverage now.
Nancy Pelosi said that Republicans are the ones who perpetrate the culture of corruption. Good Democrats never do anything bad or illegal. Thus, there’s no way good Democrats are involved with this.
NC ping.
Best I can determine, the only other coverage was in the Charlotte newspaper. That’s it!
This is SOP for the MSM, which after all is an unregistered lobbyist for the suspected perps.
Democrat campaign group being investigated? I doubt that could be possible, but maybe when former House Speaker Jim Black (Democrat from Mecklenburg county) gets out of prison we can ask him about it.
From the quickie look I just took: DUH.
Paging the green eyeshade guys....
"At issue: Did the money that the group routed to North Carolina come only from individuals or did it include corporate money, in violation of North Carolina law?
There are Democrats. Of course it includes corporate money, as well as money stolen from union membership dues against their will, which technically becomes corporate funds after it is pooled together, send to their national offices and/or affiliate groups, and then and donated to the Democrat they are supporting.
And lets not forget foreigners who, acting as a of CEO of some offshore compamy, make donations, buying future political favors.
This is the same stuff that Democrats accused Tom DeLay of doing when he didn’t. Republicans were more careful, but we essentially live in a glass house on this one. There are all sorts of shenanigans used by both parties to launder corporate money and get it legally into campaigns.
I think that train of thought is coming to an end.
I was thinking of Delay as well.
This recent rash of donation scandals could damage a few Democrats contenders (especially Hillary), if only MSM would pursue it like they would if it was Republicans. Fat chance of that happening though. They’ll say it’s Republicans trying to throw a lot of dirt in hopes of some of it sticking, just like we say of Democrats, and it will be swept under the rug.
They receive Federal Tax Dollars via Title X funds, yet they also have a branch of Planned Parenthood that does nothing but campaign for candidates that will promote the Planned Parenthood cause and vote for Planned Parenthood funding such as Title X.
What Planned Parenthood does makes this scandal small in comparison -- as Planned Parenthood operates at the State, National and Local levels, and backs campaigns at all three levels...
Anyone who has lived in NC for any period of time (I’ve lived in Raleigh for 13 years) can tell you that NC politics is corrupt as hell and likely always will be.
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