skip to main |
skip to sidebar
UPDATED BELOW
Sen. Tim Huelskamp topped the field in fundraising in the first district once again, new FEC reports show.
With almost $129,000 in contributions in the first quarter of 2010, Huelskamp ended with over half a million dollars in the bank. Of his nearly $130K raised, nearly $20K was from unitemized contributions.
Jim Barnett was second at $107,000 raised but with almost $100,000 spent, he was only able to bank $382,000 at the end of the quarter. The bigger surprise here is that I only saw one "Requested" in his contributors employment information. That's be good and bad for the Barnett campaign. Good in that they have apparently figured out that you have to ask folks giving to your campaign lawfully required information. Bad in that they've now demonstrated they can competently file a campaign finance report and so now the public is left wondering what happened during all of the previous quarters.
Barnett's large expenditures include one for over $16,000 to Axiom Strategies (a la Jeff Roe) and $23,000 to Wilson Research in Oklahoma for, "Campaign Research and Strategies." Well, I guess Barnett never promised to be the economic engine of the Big First.
Speaking of which, no report yet from the Wasinger campaign.
Tracey Mann tanked, and that's putting it lightly. With just over $65,000 raised and almost $45,000 spent, he ended the quarter with just over $261,000 in the bank. Shadwick came in a very distant fourth (so far) at $22,800 raised, $18,600 spent and $23,400 in the bank. Sue Boldra almost raised $15,000 and has $17,200 cash on hand.
All in all, looks like a great quarter for the Huelskamp campaign. I'll update later with more information about interesting contributors and expenditures, and I'll let you know how the Wasinger campaign made out when they get around to filing.
UPDATE:
Wasinger looks like he just filed, and not too many surprises here. $111K in contributions, $102K in expenditures means only $213K in the bank. Lots of Virginia, lots of Massachusetts, lots of out of state contributors. And despite assurances that his campaign would be the economic powerhouse the Big First, he seems to be quite enthralled with spending large sums on media in Virginia. So Wasinger squeaks into a second place in contributions raised, but fourth in cash on hand.
On the back of gaining donations from every county in the big First District, Tim Huelskamp announced today that he had outraised all other candidates and had more than $100K in cash on hand than his nearest challenger.
Huelskamp reported raising over $136,000 during the fourth quarter. That was followed by $123,000 by Jim Barnett and barely over $100,000 by Rob Wasinger. Tracey Mann raised nearly $72,000 with Monte Shadwick and Sue Boldra both raising less than $20,000.
So far no other candidate has had the ability to gain contributions from every county in the district. It's really easy to talk a talk. Send out some emails, roll into town and spend 15 minutes for a quick photo op.
It's an entirely different game to get a contribution when there. The fact is so far the people of the first district have been voting; voting with their hard earned money. And clearly the winner of those votes has been Tim Huelskamp.
And while Huelskamp continues to shine in funds raised, he's also leading the pack in cash on hand. Huelskamp is way out front with nearly half a million on hand, followed distantly by Barnett with $374,000 on hand. Of course that includes a $100,000 loan Barnett made to himself.
Barnett has once again turned in a year end report with spotty information. "Requested" and "undisclosed" appear less than in previous reports, but are still there. When will Jim Barnett hire competent staff that can track down basic, required FEC information? When will Jim Barnett finally show some respect for the people of Kansas and their right to know?
Recent filings suggest not anytime soon. Barnett choose to wait until two days before a filing deadline to fix employer and occupation information in his third quarter report. That's of course more than two months after filing an amendment to show they had more cash on hand than reported earlier. It looks like when it might make him look bad, they can act quickly. When it comes to the public's right to know... well... that can take a back seat to getting elected, right Jim???
Now, want to know the sad part? It took me only a few pages before I found "undisclosed" on his amended third quarter report. And who didn't disclose the name of their employer? Uh, an ophthalmologist in Emporia. You know, a doctor that Barnett has worked with for years. It's so ridiculous it's unbelievable.
And that's the amended report.
So, I'm sure you'll be hearing about another request for information from the FEC. I personally wonder when the FEC will stop asking the Barnett campaign to please obey the law and start slapping on some fines. They're clearly asking for it.
Then again, this thumbing his nose at the law doesn't seem to be helping. Huelskamp is still the front runner in funds raised, cash on hand, and clearly with the wallets of First District voters.
With three days left until an FEC imposed deadline, Jim Barnett is still snubbing his nose at the people of Kansas.
The FEC recently sent the Barnett campaign a letter questioning several items in their third quarter finance report. Previously Barnett was able to file an amended report within several weeks fixing mistakes that gave the appearance the campaign had much less cash on hand than in reality. The error and subsequent fix displayed the campaign's stellar ability to recognize a mistake and fix it quickly.
The Barnett campaign has had no such desire to quickly answer an FEC request to provide the occupations and employers of donors. This is the second report Barnett has filed where donor information has been missing, in direct violation of FEC guidelines.
When does Jim Barnett plan to take the citizens of Kansas seriously?
Jim Barnett continues to thumb his nose at the FEC and the public's right to know.A review of documents submitted by the Barnett campaign to the FEC reveals that they waited until the last day to respond to an FEC request for additional information that the campaign refused to include in a second quarter report. The campaign again refused to include the same type of information in their third quarter report, and again the FEC has requested additional clarification.
However when the campaign mistakenly began with a zero balance on their third quarter report, which essentially caused the Barnett campaign to appear as though they had much less cash on hand than was actually there, the mistake was corrected in just over two weeks. Why is the Barnett campaign able to respond so quickly when it might make the campaign look bad but drags its feet to the very last second when it involves complying with federal law?
Because of the third quarter goof, Barnett has shown that he and his staff are fully capable of recognizing a mistake and correcting it quickly. Apparently the only difference between these two problems is Barnett's desire to make himself look good versus doing what's lawful and in the public's best interests.
The inability to submit a full and complete report is baffling. Barnett's November 2nd amended report includes a $1,000 contribution from the mod squad's favorite Steve Cloud. Yet his employer is listed as "undisclosed." Are we to believe that the Barnett campaign was unable to find out the employer for former Republican National Committeeman Stephen Cloud?
Barnett's lack of respect for the law and the public should be questioned at length, especially in light of his continued disregard for the law as evidenced by this December 10, 2009 request for information from the FEC, and his now proven ability to respond in a timely manner to reporting mistakes.
The real Jim Barnett is beginning to emerge; one that cares about his public image but little about the public itself.
Jim Barnett received three serious citations from the Federal Elections Commission regarding his July 2009 campaign finance report.
The letter, dated September 9, shows that just a "preliminary review" of his report turned up multiple errors. The letter continues, "Failure to adequately respond by the response date noted above (October 15) could result in an audit or enforcement action."
As noted before (here and here), Barnett failed to list a single occupation or employer for his donors. This is a serious oversight and it's hard to understand how a seasoned politician like Barnett allowed this to happen.
The FEC outlined three separate steps the campaign must take to obtain the missing occupation and employer information. Several of these may be a problem for the Barnett campaign should the FEC decide to audit their records.
According to the letter, Barnett must, "include a clear and conspicuous request for the contributor information and must inform the contributor of the requirements of federal law for the reporting of such information," in the original solicitation for funds. I have no idea if the Barnett campaign has been doing this, but I would imagine they haven't otherwise the information would have been included on the original report.
The FEC continues that, "if the information is not provided, you must make one follow-up, stand alone effort to obtain this information, regardless of whether the contribution(s) was solicited or not. This effort must occur no later than 30 days after receipt of the contribution."
This may be a problem for the Barnett campaign. Clearly we're several months out from any contributions that would have been included in a July 2009 finance report.
The FEC also notes Barnett's failure to provide all information regarding LLC and partnership business contributions. There's not even a "requested" in the occupation/employer fields for these donors.
Barnett also failed to list whether his $100K "loan" was from his personal funds or a bank. I'm pretty sure I could answer that one for the FEC, but I think I'll let the Barnett campaign handle it since they seem to have so many other items that need clarification as well.
I'm really shocked that the Barnett campaign didn't go ahead and file an amended report a few days after July 15. It isn't like the FEC isn't going to notice you haven't reported all information as required by law. The fact the campaign waited for a notice from the FEC rather than being proactive about fixing the problem only provides further evidence the campaign is deliberately withholding information.
If Barnett won't comply with simple campaign finance laws, how will he act if elected to Congress and in a position of considerable power? His intentional omission of required information raises serious questions about his trust with the public.
Missing employer and occupation information may seem trivial, but the fact the campaign has yet to report this information, knowing full well what the law requires and having received a serious notice from the FEC, speaks volumes about the attitude of Jim Barnett.
FEC reports show that Tim Barker has a bit of a problem keeping track of all that cash that is flowing into his campaign account. On May 8 he had to answer the $22,000 question to the FEC.
It looks as though Barker finally had to report to the FEC for his rather large disbursement that he later took back. The large disbursement was quite a mistake (maybe?) on his part that showed he only had around $2,200 in the bank in his January 09 report. I can't quite figure out what happened other than he probably has an inexperienced treasurer and what should have been a funds transfer ended up as a disbursement. A sign of how things will work in the campaign? Who knows.
The FEC filing is interesting, but it's not as interesting as the amended organization statement filed in February. The FEC, in all its glorious government efficiency, posted the cover letter with instructions to Barker's treasurer on what to do with the amended statement. Looks as though the amended filing was because his treasurer (who's a registered Democrat by the way) changed her last name.
The cover letter, which wasn't included in the original filing, is from a Donna Labayen at Lanthrop and Gage. Lanthrop and Gage, you'll recall, is the law firm where Kansas Senate Vice President (and VP of the mods) John Vratil is partner. Labayen is an assistant to C. David Barrier, an attorney in the Kansas City, Missouri office, although it appears Barker's actual attorney is Amy Blunt. The instructions and amended statement of organization was cc'd to Blunt, a governmental affairs lawyer. Her bio lists work done for former Gov. Matt Blunt of Missouri.
I can't hardly believe the firm of Lanthrop and Gage was chosen by accident. It looks like the mods have picked their candidate, so Mann and Boldra might want to look out. Should we be at all surprised that Vratil helped out a former Democrat who's decided to be a Republican to get elected to office? Hardly.
With his business dealings and change of heart, it looks to be right on target if you ask me.
UPDATED BELOW
