GOP seeks to block Torricelli from transferring campaign fund to party, Lautenberg

Newsday ^ | 10/7/02 | SHARON THEIMER

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

WASHINGTON -- The Republican Party planned Monday to take its battle against Democrat Frank Lautenberg's New Jersey Senate campaign to the Federal Election Commission, seeking to bar the Democrats' former candidate from giving his campaign money to the party or Lautenberg.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee was preparing to file a complaint with the commission contending that because Sen. Robert Torricelli is no longer a candidate, he must refund any leftover contributions for next month's election to his donors, NRSC general counsel Alex Vogel said.

The NRSC will ask the commission to block Torricelli from transferring his campaign fund to the party or to Lautenberg as the FEC investigates the Republican complaint, Vogel said. The most Torricelli can give Lautenberg is $1,000, he said.

"The argument is look, if you fail to act, any action after the fact is far too late," Vogel said. "We're talking about whether the Democrats can inject millions of dollars from Torricelli's campaign into this election."...

[Tumbleweed_Connection]

WIPE THE SMILE OFF OF THIS MAN’S FACE.
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[eureka!]

Cool. Very cool. Hope it succeeds....

[syriacus]

Interesting. Thanks for posting this.

[Tree of Liberty]

Lautenberg's already said he isn't going to draw on his own bank account for this election, too.

[bandleader]

The democRATS break ALL Laws concerning fund-raising and then use this as an excuse for more restrictions on fund-raising!Their collective HUBRIS is nothing short of BREATHTAKING!!"BeelzeBubba"was(and is)the MOST CORRUPT person?to ever hold public office!!!

[savedbygrace]

But with senility setting in, he's already forgotten he said that. ;-)

DOCTOR: Mr. Smith, I have bad news. You have cancer and you have Alzheimer's.

MR. SMITH: Well, at least I don't have cancer.

[11th Earl of Mar]

No offense to the Republicans for doing the right thing here, but they seem to forget that we live in an era of lawlessness.

It makes no difference what the law says. The libs, with the help of libs on the bench, will do whatever they please.

[afz400]

The main reason the Dems want to keep control of the Senate is so they can stop honest judges from being appointed. The Dems real power is in the corrupt judges they control.

[ex-Texan]

"If Dems da rules ya gots 'ta follow 'em ...."
-- Popeye 'da Sailor Man.

The Dems don't want to obey the rules. It's too simple.

[Digger]

The Pubbies are reaping their results of NOT cleaning up Congress, allowing the Bubbas of gov get off free. I'm actually liking it. Just how far will they go before the sheeple throw them ALL out. Probably never.

[mwl1]

Lautenberg's already said he isn't going to draw on his own bank account for this election, too.

When they tell Lautenfraud that it's either spend his own money, or lose, don't you think he'll open up his checkbook?

And, notice that, like a good liberal, Launtenfraud wants to spend anybody's money but his own.

[dead]

Lautenberg's already said he isn't going to draw on his own bank account for this election, too.

Lautenberg is, as always, full of shit.

[randita]

FEC will get around to looking at this case in about 2008. It took them that long to conclude that Gore's Buddhist Temple fiasco violated campaign finance laws.

I wouldn't put much hope in the FEC doing anything about this now. The best to hope for is that they would require Torch's war chest to be put in an escrow fund until it's decided what can legally done with it. At least if they did that, Democrats would be forced to divert funds from other close races to NJ.

[JoeFromCA]

I have a bad feeling about all this. Absentee ballots are going out with the would-be democrat candidate's name, the US Supremes haven't blocked it yet, etc.

Let's hope the Supremes can stop this effort, just like they stopped Gore's illegal conduct. But we'll see.

[mwl1]

Lautenberg is, as always, full of shit.

Don't equivocate. Come on, tell us how you really feel.

[wbii2002]

All of the candidates (Republican, Green, etc) should immediately sue the Torricelli campaign to recover the costs they have spent to date running against Torricelli? It appears that the Torricelli campaign may have fraudulently caused each of the other individuals running for the Senate seat to expend their resources. It would appear that they may have an action under tort law. The best way to tie up the Democrats is to sue, sue, sue! Go after their money. In addition, if their were any Democrats that are upset at this possible fraud and they had given money to the Torricelli campaign they could in a like manner potentially bring a suit against the Torricelli campaign. while the suits are being adjudicated, the Torricelli campaign money could potentially be tied up.

Second thought is that the $800K or so spent by the Democrats to redo, reprint, mail absentee ballots, and otherwise set up the election with Lautenberg running in lieu of Torricelli may be an unlawful campaign contribution to the Lautenberg campaign. As a minimum this may be a legitimate complaint to the FEC and potentially could be immediately actionable through New Jersey or Federal courts.

Third thought is that , every penny of cost of redoing this election should be borne by the Democrats or, more precisely, by the Lautenberg campaign. The non-Democratic party candidates should immediately petition the judge appointed to oversee this process to ensure that there are sufficient safeguards in place to capture all of the costs involved. For instance, if personnel worked “overtime” over the weekend are these costs being appropriately captured as overtime? It would seem to me that all of this effort should be accomplished as overtime, so that the “normal” work of the election workers is not impacted one bit. One hundred percent of the costs should be borne by the Democrats/ Lautenberg campaign and there should be no impact to other work that would have gone on.

Tie up the money!

[ghost of nixon]

ditto - the ultimate cost of stealing this election should be so high that the Dem's will be short of funds in other campaigns.