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flygirl311
F L I N T O I D
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Schauer admits breaking the law, hit with RECORD penalty!
By Nick, Section News
Posted on Wed Feb 25, 2009 at 09:50:12 AM EST
Tags: Mark Schauer, campaign finance, Terri Lynn Land (all tags)
More than two years after committing over twenty specific, egregious campaign finance violations, freshman Democratic Congressman Mark Schauer is finally being forced to pay the piper.
Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land announced this week that Schauer has been hit with the largest punishment for campaign finance violations in the history of the state of Michigan! According to the Lansing State Journal:
The campaign fund of former Democratic state Sen. Mark Schauer of Battle Creek is paying the state $208,250 for improperly donating money to help elect Democrats to the Senate in 2006.
Thus concludes a story we've been discussing here on Right Michigan since all the way back in December. Of 2007. The Battle Creek Enquirer reported at the time:
Schauer chaired the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee and oversaw the Senate Democratic Fund, for which his bombastic chief of staff, Ken Brock, took over as treasurer.
The fund raked in $440,000 above the legal limit of $20,000 per person - which the Dems don't deny. Twelve senatorial candidate committees did, with Schauer's as the worst offender at $187,000.
The moolah was instantly pumped into the campaigns of four key candidates, three of whom were trounced anyway.
For state races, this is a staggering chunk of change. The grievance is pretty cut and dried (some might call it money laundering). When seven candidates got wind of the GOP's secretary of state complaint, they ostensibly demanded a refund. Marky-Mark did not.
Here's how Schauer's illegal scheme worked. The Congressman, then a state legislator decided to go ahead and raise a bunch of illegal campaign cash. He received illegal money from Democrats including Carl Williams, Alexander Lipsey, Bob Schockman, Gretchen Whitmer, Mickey Switalski, Buzz Thomas, Liz Brater, Mike Prusi, Gilda Jacobs, Glenn Anderson and Mark Slavens and then pitched in $187,000 himself. Mind you, the limit is $20,000.
Once the Democrats realized they'd been discovered each of the folks who were still working in the legislature went ahead and asked for refunds.
Essentially they said "oops, our mistake, don't punish us for it!" Prusi, Whitmer, Switalski, Brater, Thomas, Slavens and Jacobs all took their illegal cash back, admitting they'd been caught with their hands in the cookie jar and trying to make things right (well after the fact).
But no such change of heart from Mark Schauer. When he breaks the law he stands by his criminal activity! And he stands by his man, too. Ken Brock, the anti-Semite who's racist comments drew the ire of everyone in Michigan except Mark Schauer, was the Senator's treasurer on this particular money laundering operation and signed all of the papers.
Until this week there was no backing down from either of them.
Still, the settlement with the Secretary of State winds up being a peach of a deal, compared with the penalties that COULD be exacted. Each violation of this particular statute brings along a penalty of as much as 90 days in jail and / or serious monetary fines. Schauer admitted to twenty-two violations.
That's nearly 5 ½ years in jail.
By comparison, I'd say Congressman Schauer got off pretty easy. Only time will tell, though, how seriously his constituents frown on an admission from their Representative in DC that he broke the law twenty-two times. |
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Tue Dec 31, 2013 7:47 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Thu Jan 02, 2014 6:06 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Rich Robinson: Gov. Snyder's support of dark money taints his legacy
December 30, 2013 |
Last week Michigan governor Rick Snyder signed legislation that allows political donors to so-called issue ads, which don't explicitly support a candidate, to stay anonymous. / Romain Blanquart/ Detroit Free Press.
The news release last week announcing that Governor Snyder had signed Senate Bill 661 – the bill to “modernize” campaign finances – trumpeted the claim that the new amendment to the Michigan Campaign Finance Act would yield “unprecedented transparency.” That is a fiction worthy of George Orwell.
Unless, of course, you believe that affixing committee names to the outside of black boxes through which tens of millions of dollars will be laundered into state political campaigns is transparency. The vast majority of us haven’t had that lobotomy.
Was the bill necessary to protect free speech, as the Governor claimed? According to the U.S. Supreme Court, “The First Amendment protects political speech; and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way. This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.”
Was the amendment necessary to protect the most politically powerful interest groups and individuals in the state from intimidation? Justice Clarence Thomas raised just that argument against disclosure in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, but he was outvoted, 8-1. As Justice Antonin Scalia said in another case, “Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed.”
The core of the new law pitted citizens’ right to know who is funding political campaigns against funders’ privilege to do so anonymously. Citizens lost. Funders won. Citizens also lost the ability to correlate political investments with their policy return on investment.
We are left to wonder what turned One Tough Nerd, who championed transparency and accountability, into the ultimate enabler of dark money in Michigan politics. Whatever it was, now, we’ve got the Freedom of Disinformation Act. That’s a shabby legacy, Governor.
Rich Robinson
Executive director, Michigan Campaign Finance Network
East Lansing, Michigan |
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Thu Jan 02, 2014 6:12 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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According to this nearly five year old article, many Democrats were involved. Is this so unlike the GOP involvement with the wealthy Koch Brothers and other wealthy right wing groups with their secretive dark money Super PACs ? "
The "ONE TOUGH NERD" has pretty much lied about everything he promised voters, especially in transparency of government. Now he has made it legal to cover up the formerly illegal campaign acts.
Pit the actions of Schauer in office against those of the Nerd.
"The core of the new law pitted citizens’ right to know who is funding political campaigns against funders’ privilege to do so anonymously. Citizens lost. Funders won. Citizens also lost the ability to correlate political investments with their policy return on investment.
We are left to wonder what turned One Tough Nerd, who championed transparency and accountability, into the ultimate enabler of dark money in Michigan politics. Whatever it was, now, we’ve got the Freedom of Disinformation Act. That’s a shabby legacy, Governor." |
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Thu Jan 02, 2014 6:22 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Susan J. Demas: GOP plans rigging Michigan's Electoral College votes aren't dead yet
Susan J. Demas | Political columnist for MLive.com By Susan J. Demas | Political columnist for MLive.com
on January 02, 2014 at 6:37 AM, updated January 02, 2014 at 7:57 AM
The plan to game the Electoral College in Michigan may be forgotten -- but it's certainly not dead.
A year ago, there was a flurry of national and state stories about legislation sponsored by Rep. Pete Lund (R-Shelby Twp.) that would have given Republican Mitt Romney the majority of Michigan's electoral votes -- even though he lost by a jaw-dropping 10 points.
That's almost 450,000 votes.
Not surprisingly, the plan was overwhelmingly backed by the Michigan Republican Party.
Right now, Michigan is one of 48 states that has a winner-take-all system for electoral votes. The presidential candidate who wins the most votes, wins the state. Pretty simple.
The only problem for Republicans is that Democrats have won Michigan in the last six presidential elections. So clearly, they believe a new approach is needed.
Here's how Lund's plan would work. Michigan has 16 electoral college votes. Just two of those would go to the presidential candidate who won the most votes statewide.
Fourteen of those would be awarded to the winner in each of the state's 14 congressional districts.
Lund knows quite a bit about the makeup of those congressional districts. As chair of the House Redistricting and Elections Commission in 2011, he was instrumental in drawing those lines.
And as luck would have it, Republicans managed to score a 9-5 advantage in the party base of those congressional districts. And coincidentally, that is the exact makeup of the congressional delegation today.
So it would be fairly easy for the next Republican nominee to win Michigan, even if s/he lost the state by several hundred thousand votes.
That would also be the antithesis of democracy.
Michigan wasn't the only state where this scheme was proposed. Other blue states where Republicans were in charge, like Wisconsin, Virginia and Pennsylvania, flirted with the idea and dropped it under scrutiny.
Notice how Republicans weren't pushing the change in red states like Georgia or Arizona, where Democrats would pick up electoral votes in some congressional districts.
You might assume the idea is dead in Michigan, as well. Lund hasn't reintroduced his bill. GOP Gov. Rick Snyder last year said it's "not the appropriate time" to take up the issue.
But many Republicans still love the idea.
And you know when might be an appropriate time? The post-2014 election session, when Republicans can flex their legislative muscles with little consequence.
That's what happened in lame duck 2012. Right to Work wasn't on Snyder's agenda. And lo and behold, it suddenly was. So were abortion restrictions he'd expressed concern over and citizenship requirements for voting that he had vetoed.
Lame duck 2014 is the perfect time to resurrect the electoral college legislation that could enshrine GOP power for decades.
And Pete Lund is just the man to do it. Armed with an affable smile, partisan hammer and boundless ambition (he last year toyed with a U.S. Senate run), Lund would ensure his place as a Republican player if he could jam this through.
If Michigan makes this move, other states will likely follow.
Sure, there will be hand-wringing newspaper editorials and diatribes from good government groups, but they can be ignored. The next election will be in 23 months, and Lund is term-limited anyway.
There's no real risk in exercising raw political power. The most surprising thing would be if Republicans didn't try to do so.
Susan J. Demas is Publisher and Editor of Inside Michigan Politics, a nationally acclaimed, biweekly political newsletter. She can be reached at susan@sjdemas.com. Follow her on Twitter here. |
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Thu Jan 02, 2014 1:46 pm |
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