Wednesday, July 28, 2010

BREAKING: Could Cordray be knocked off the ballot?

If these allegations turn out to be true, the answer is "absofrickinlutely".
Today, the Summit County and Franklin County Republican Parties jointly filed a complaint against Attorney General Richard Cordray with the Ohio Elections Commission.

“Richard Cordray is ignoring campaign finance law and getting away with it,” Summit County Chairman Alex Arshinkoff said. “The public will see that Cordray’s campaign was wiring money to Democratic leaders at the last minute in a frantic attempt to hold on to $765,000 of illegal money.”

The complaint stems from Cordray’s attempt to avoid an Ohio law that prohibits state candidates from carrying over more than $200,000 from a previous election cycle. If a candidate has more than $200,000 from the previous election cycle at the filing deadline, the law requires him to donate the excess money to charity, give the money to the Elections Commission, or refund the contributions.

Right at the filing deadline last February, Cordray’s campaign had about $765,000 more than Ohio law allows. Instead of obeying Ohio law, Cordray “donated” $765,000 to the Summit and Franklin County Democratic Parties as well as the Ohio Democratic Party in the hours before the deadline. Since that time, about $493,000 of Cordray’s “donation” has been returned to him
by the Democratic Party, giving him full use of the money.
If you'll remember, 3BP was the first to note the strange discrepancies on Cordray's report all the way back in April. And it seems these charges have the potential to be devastating to the Attorney General.
According to Ohio law, the penalty for a violation of the excess funds law requires Cordray to forfeit all of the money over the limit to the state of Ohio. Additionally, Cordray could be prohibited from appearing on the ballot if he failed to dispose of more than $5,000 in excess funds. The complaint alleges Cordray failed to dispose of more than $760,000 in excess funds.
This could be huge, folks.

4 comments:

  1. Um, OEC complaints don't result in people being knocked off the ballot.

    And if this disqualifies Cordray....

    then SoS candidate Jon Husted is disqualified for doing THE EXACT SAME THING in 2008.

    Please, keep hyping nonstories. It's entertaining.

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  2. It's not the OEC complaint he should worry about, it's the law that punishes misuse of excess funds. If the OEC charge is confirmed, the OEC could refer Cordray for prosecution under the following law:

    http://codes.ohio.gov/orc/3517.109

    (D)(1) Subject to division (D)(2) of this section, no candidate or covered candidate shall appear on the ballot, even if certified to appear on the ballot, unless the candidate’s or covered candidate’s campaign committee has disposed of excess funds, excess aggregate contributions, or both as required by divisions (B) and (C) of this section."

    As far as Husted goes, after a quick glance it looks like Husted donated $200k more than a month before the deadline and didn't even get the money back.

    Meanwhile, Cordray contributed $765k 0-4 days out, then had $500k returned to him by the same people he contributed to just a couple weeks later.

    Are those two the same? Not even close.

    Keep trying to dismiss scandal, it's pathetic.

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  3. You're right the "scandal" pathetic.

    Idiot, it's two different county funds. Cordray didn't donate to the state candidate funds. In other words the funds that donated to him were different from the ones that donated to him, and they cannot and were not commingled.

    The statute you cited DOESN'T EVEN APPLY to what Cordray did.

    Look, I don't know what your education background is, but you are not licensed to practice law anywhere, let alone Ohio.

    It's nice to see gun grabbing John Kasich come to defend his fellow gun grabber Mike DeWine.

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  4. :-)


    Let's just say this...I look forward to the hearing. Haha.

    ReplyDelete

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