I’ve been told that bills are generally taken up on the Senate floor in the order they came out of committee. House leaders reserve much more discretion in deciding the order in which bills come up for debate on the floor.
The Senate Commerce Committee voted Do Pass on the Pace legislation on April 7th. It’s not on the calendar yet. And yet, the Sierra Club says:
In the Senate Agriculture Committee on Wednesday, Senator Stouffer amended the fees by reducing those for factory farms (CAFOs) to a level so low that the Dept. of Natural Resources testified it would be unable to inspect CAFOs or grant permits. Despite this, the amended bill was voted “do pass” and is now #4 on the Senate Calendar for debate, so might be passed as early as Monday, April 19.
ACTION: ask your senator to re-amend HB 2109 to remove Senator Stouffer’s CAFO amendments.
So never let it be said that the Senate leaders don’t know when it’s wise to break with precedent. If a bill is bad enough, they can grit their teeth and go for it.
“…Well, it’s, it’s because we didn’t have enough people when we went into Iraq. Truth be known, we didn’t have the size of force necessary to do what we were trying to do in Iraq…” – Senator Claire McCaskill (D)
Somebody should have told that to Donald Rumsfeld. Oh, wait…
Senator Claire McCaskill (D) was a guest on The Rachel Maddow Showlast night, discussing contractor oversight in Afghanistan. The transcript:
Rachel Maddow: ….Joining us now after way too long an absence is Senator Claire McCaskill of the great State of Missouri, chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Contracting. Senator, thank you so much for your time tonight. Good to see you.
Senator Claire McCaskill: Thanks, Rachel, good to be with you.
Rachel Maddow: After all of these years and all of these billions paid to contractors to do this, did they have any explanation for why they haven’t done something as simple as, as telling people what the sights on their guns are for?
Senator McCaskill: Well frankly, I mean, it’s been like the wild west because nobody’s been watching them. This is a textbook example of complete lack of oversight on contracting. And it wouldn’t be so frustrating if this wasn’t a story that we’ve heard over and over again. If you look at this contract it’s been bounced around, from, uh, Defense to State, uh, now they’re trying to take it back to Defense. And here’s the saddest part of the story, this is a key mission of what we’re doing in Afghanistan. Training these police departments is one leg of a three legged stool that is going to dictate whether or not we succeed or whether we fail. So contracting oversight of the police training mission is incredibly important and it has been an abject failure…
…Rachel Maddow: General William Caldwell is in charge of training Afghan forces. He says publicly that he would rather work with people like the real Italian police or any real police other than working with contractors. Uh, General McChrystal today said that we’re too reliant on contractors and said they don’t save money. He says he wants fewer of them in Afghanistan. Who is actually in favor of these contractors still being there? Why can’t we seem to free ourselves of them?
Senator McCaskill: Well, it’s, it’s because we didn’t have enough people when we went into Iraq. Truth be known, we didn’t have the size of force necessary to do what we were trying to do in Iraq, so the logistic support went to contractors. The, um, training of police went to contractors. Now we’re repeating that in Afghanistan. Now, hopefully, uh, I was in Afghanistan not too long ago, met with both General McChrystal and General Caldwell. I will tell you, General Caldwell gets it. He understands how badly this has been done before. He understands that he’s got to get this under his command and get control of it. But just to give you another example of what, what nonsense there is here, guess who they’re hiring to oversee the contractors that are training the police in Afghanistan? Contractors. [laugh] So, we’ve got to get people in the country that work for our military, that are watching the way these people are being trained because it’s not just training, it’s also mentoring. There’s rampant corruption in these police departments. Uh, and you’re not gonna establish a rule of law unless you work on the mentoring part so they realize there’s a different way to police besides saying what can you pay me to let you go.
Rachel Maddow: I worry about the oversight of, of contracts themselves being, uh, uh, contracted out. Contractors overseeing contractors. I also worry about the fact that we think this is something that can only be done by contractors in terms of devel, uh, delivering this, this service. I mean, Blackwater is up for this police training contract in Afghanistan now, despite Nisour, uh, Nisour Square, despite the State Department investigations, despite this indictment against their former employees. I mean, how badly does a company have to behave before we stop hiring them and just have our troops and our government employees do this stuff?
Senator McCaskill: Part of the problem is that our military wants what they want when they want it. And contracting is a quicker way to get there. Um, we’ve got to realize that that is a luxury we can no longer afford. ‘Cause it hasn’t, hasn’t been a good investment for our taxpayers. And it hasn’t been the kind of support our military needs. So we have to begin to realize that especially training local police for rule of law in a counterinsurgency effort, which is going to be a core competency of our military forever, we’ve got to bring that in house. We’ve got to make sure we’ve got the oversight of the contracts that are in the military chain of command so we know who to fire when it goes badly. That’s part of the problem with this mess, is you don’t even know who to hold accountable, because it’s such a cluster. You’ve got NATO in there, you’ve got the military, you’ve got the State Department. Meanwhile these contractors, they’re not really sure who the boss is, so they do what they feel like.
Rachel Maddow: Do you feel like you have support in the administration and at the Pentagon for the views that you’ve expressed here and the way that you’ve approached this issue?
Senator McCaskill: I do, um, you know now, what, what, this is not something you can turn a switch and accomplish. Part of the problem, Rachel, is the area of contracting is not exactly sexy. And you might have noticed that folks around the Capitol kind of like the stuff that’s getting headlines that day. So part of it is attention span. Um, that’s why I’m happy about this committee. We can stay on this even though there may not be a full hearing room, there may, may not be cameras or people covering it in the newspaper. But these agencies are gonna know somebody is paying attention to the way they’re contracting. And I think over time we’re gonna be able to make a real difference, ’cause nobody’s been paying this kind of attention to contracting in the federal government before.
Rachel Maddow: You keep doing these hearings and I promise we will keep covering it. At least at our little show here at nine o’clock. [laugh] Uh, I have one last question [crosstalk] senator.
Senator McCaskill: It’s a deal.
Rachel Maddow: All right, it’s a deal. Uh, [crosstalk]…
Senator McCaskill: Sure.
Rachel Maddow: Uh, one last question, is, and I know that you won’t answer it directly, but I’m just gonna ask anyway. Wouldn’t being a Supreme Court justice be an awesome job?
Senator McCaskill: Honestly, for me, I would get way too restless. Um, you know, I, I love, I’m an intellectually curious person and I do love to read, but it’s an isolating job and I kinda need to be out there mixing it up a little bit more than you can do as a Supreme Court justice. So, it’s not something that I, honestly I don’t think I ‘d even be considered, uh, but if I were I’d have to say I, I don’t think I’m the right personality to be a Supreme Court justice.
Rachel Maddow: Senator Claire McCaskill of the great State of Missouri answering that with way more detail than I ‘d ever thought I’d get. Uh, thank you so much for your time today. [laughter] And good luck to the Cardinals tonight.
“…we’re going to put in place new rules so that big banks and financial institutions will pay for the bad decisions they make – not taxpayers. Simply put, this means no more taxpayer bailouts….” – President Barack Obama
Senator Kit Bond (r – lame duck) and all of the republicans in the Senate signed on [pdf] to block that financial regulatory reform (you know, the lack thereof which allowed a wealthy few to almost collapse our economy by virtue of their high risk and other behaviors).
…Just the other day, in fact, the Leader of the Senate Republicans and the Chair of the Republican Senate campaign committee met with two dozen top Wall Street executives to talk about how to block progress on this issue…
…[republican Senate Leader] McConnell’s Wall Street meeting, in other words, is quickly becoming one of the central aspects of the debate. Perhaps the Minority Leader would be willing to shed some additional light on what transpired? Who, exactly, did he meet with? How much money did he collect? What did the Wall Street elites demand, specifically, and what did he promise?
I wonder what the reaction might be if Senate Dems raised the prospect of some kind of investigation into the meeting, complete with subpoenas for attendees….
President Obama called out the republican obstructionists in today’s address:
“….Now, unsurprisingly, these reforms have not exactly been welcomed by the people who profit from the status quo – as well their allies in Washington. This is probably why the special interests have spent a lot of time and money lobbying to kill or weaken the bill. Just the other day, in fact, the Leader of the Senate Republicans and the Chair of the Republican Senate campaign committee met with two dozen top Wall Street executives to talk about how to block progress on this issue.
Lo and behold, when he returned to Washington, the Senate Republican Leader came out against the common-sense reforms we’ve proposed. In doing so, he made the cynical and deceptive assertion that reform would somehow enable future bailouts – when he knows that it would do just the opposite. Every day we don’t act, the same system that led to bailouts remains in place – with the exact same loopholes and the exact same liabilities. And if we don’t change what led to the crisis, we’ll doom ourselves to repeat it. That’s the truth. Opposing reform will leave taxpayers on the hook if a crisis like this ever happens again….”
The full transcript of the President’s address:
Remarks of
President Barack Obama
As Prepared for Delivery
The White House
April 17, 2010
There were many causes of the turmoil that ripped through our economy over the past two years. But above all, this crisis was caused by failures in the financial industry. What is clear is that this crisis could have been avoided if Wall Street firms were more accountable, if financial dealings were more transparent, and if consumers and shareholders were given more information and authority to make decisions.
But that did not happen. And that’s because special interests have waged a relentless campaign to thwart even basic, common-sense rules – rules to prevent abuse and protect consumers. In fact, the financial industry and its powerful lobby have opposed modest safeguards against the kinds of reckless risks and bad practices that led to this very crisis.
The consequences of this failure of responsibility – from Wall Street to Washington – are all around us: 8 million jobs lost, trillions in savings erased, countless dreams diminished or denied. I believe we have to do everything we can to ensure that no crisis like this ever happens again. That’s why I’m fighting so hard to pass a set of Wall Street reforms and consumer protections. A plan for reform is currently moving through Congress.
Here’s what this plan would do. First, it would enact the strongest consumer financial protections ever. It would put consumers back in the driver’s seat by forcing big banks and credit card companies to provide clear, understandable information so that Americans can make financial decisions that work best for them.
Next, these reforms would bring new transparency to financial dealings. Part of what led to this crisis was firms like AIG and others making huge and risky bets – using things like derivatives – without accountability. Warren Buffett himself once described derivatives bought and sold with little oversight as “financial weapons of mass destruction.” That’s why through reform we’d help ensure that these kinds of complicated financial transactions take place on an open market. Because, ultimately, it is a marketplace that is open, free, and fair that will allow our economy to flourish.
We would also close loopholes to stop the kind of recklessness and irresponsibility we’ve seen. It’s these loopholes that allowed executives to take risks that not only endangered their companies, but also our entire economy. And we’re going to put in place new rules so that big banks and financial institutions will pay for the bad decisions they make – not taxpayers. Simply put, this means no more taxpayer bailouts. Never again will taxpayers be on the hook because a financial company is deemed “too big to fail.”
Finally, these reforms hold Wall Street accountable by giving shareholders new power in the financial system. They’ll get a say on pay: a vote on the salaries and bonuses awarded to top executives. And the SEC will ensure that shareholders have more power in corporate elections, so that investors and pension holders have a stronger voice in determining what happens with their life savings.
Now, unsurprisingly, these reforms have not exactly been welcomed by the people who profit from the status quo – as well their allies in Washington. This is probably why the special interests have spent a lot of time and money lobbying to kill or weaken the bill. Just the other day, in fact, the Leader of the Senate Republicans and the Chair of the Republican Senate campaign committee met with two dozen top Wall Street executives to talk about how to block progress on this issue.
Lo and behold, when he returned to Washington, the Senate Republican Leader came out against the common-sense reforms we’ve proposed. In doing so, he made the cynical and deceptive assertion that reform would somehow enable future bailouts – when he knows that it would do just the opposite. Every day we don’t act, the same system that led to bailouts remains in place – with the exact same loopholes and the exact same liabilities. And if we don’t change what led to the crisis, we’ll doom ourselves to repeat it. That’s the truth. Opposing reform will leave taxpayers on the hook if a crisis like this ever happens again.
So my hope is that we can put this kind of politics aside. My hope is that Democrats and Republicans can find common ground and move forward together. But this is certain: one way or another, we will move forward. This issue is too important. The costs of inaction are too great. We will hold Wall Street accountable. We will protect and empower consumers in our financial system. That’s what reform is all about. That’s what we’re fighting for. And that’s exactly what we’re going to achieve.
Thank you.
So, does Kit Bond have a bridge in Kansas City that he’d like to sell us, too?
Via The Wonk Room, Claire McCaskil is a charter memeber of a new Senate group which has coalesced around energy policy:
These “Brown Dog” senators – [Sherrod] Brown , Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Carl Levin (D-MI), Robert Casey Jr. (D-PA), Arlen Specter (D-PA), Mark Warner (D-VA), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), Evan Bayh (D-IN), Kay Hagan (D-NC), Robert Byrd (D-WV) – have been among the most skeptical of Democrats about climate legislation, raising spurious concerns that limits on coal and oil pollution would harm their states’ economies. They finally appear to have turned the corner, recognizing that being shackled to the dirty fuels of the past is the true threat to the future of American manufacturing jobs.
The members of the group sent a letter to Senators Kerry, Lieberman and Graham which emphasizes the need to retool American manufacturing while cushioning the transition to mitigate economic pain. The letter emphasizes the importance of taking a leadership role in the global clean energy economy.
It seems that the light may have come on for McCaskill and she can finally see that clean energy is a potential winner, both politically and in terms of what it will do for Missouri’s future economic growth. If this new initiative is what it seems – and the letter handles the topic of carbon emissions in a somewhat ginger fashion – we will need to let McCaskill know that we have noticed and applaud her first steps away from endorsing the bad, old coal-powered energy model.
Both literally and figuratively things are heating up. First, of course, there is the fact that last winter was overall, despite several winter storms, the warmest on record. So it’s good to be able to report that, according to Gretchen Wieland of Repower America, things are also heating up on the legislative front with the Senate energy bill from Senators Kerry, Graham and Lieberman scheduled to debut later this month.
As Wieland explained to me during a telephone call, this means that the activities of the two organizations that make up Repower America, the Alliance for Climate Protection and the Climate Protection Action Fund, are heating up as well. They have a lot of work to do to educate voters and build support for strong clean energy legislation.
In Missouri this means that for the last thirty-four days staff have been coordinating volunteers to make daily visits to one or another of Senator Claire McCaskill’s Missouri offices. The goal is not only to persuade the Senator to support strong energy legislation, but to urge her to take a proactive role in helping to shape it when it is considered in the Senate. This effort will continue until Earth Day on April 22. Undaunted by McCaskill’s recent skittishness when confronted with the possibility of EPA emissions regulation or cap-and-trade legislation, Repower America is hoping that McCaskill will do the right thing once she “does the numbers” and is convinced of the economic benefits of clean energy for Missourians.
Repower America staff have also been organizing educational meetings with local groups, small business people, and staff from state agencies such as the Bureau of Agriculture to explain the goals of the legislation, and to counter some of the misconceptions that some of our Missouri Republican “cap-and-tax” bamboozlers have been trying to spread. Voters have to support clean energy – it’s a rare congress person who’ll go out on a limb to support unpopular legislation.
But Repower America can’t do it alone – they could use your help. The plan is for this intense bout of lobbying to culminate with a massive call-in event starting April 20 and lasting until Earth Day on the 22nd. Anybody can call the Repower America office during this time and be patched through to their Senators’ offices. The number to call is 1-877-9-REPOWER (9-737-6937).
Repower America is, of course, aware of the rumors that the Senate bill is full of “bipartisan” compromises that could hobble its effectiveness. Wieland stated that their analysts will go into action the minute that the bill is is released, pouring over each line of the content so that the organization can shape its lobbying response accordingly. The goal is to ensure that the final Senate legislation is at least as strong as the ACES (The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009) legislation produced in the House – or that when the bills are reconciled, the most important provisions, real regulation of carbon emissions for instance, are not lost.
Aw, I really wanted a primary where we could watch the republican candidates try to outrightwingnut each other and we could hurl witticisms like, “pass the popcorn.”
I wonder if Nick Marshall (r) printed all those door hangers for a potential primary campaign? That would be an awful waste now, wouldn’t it?
If you were to make a Venn Diagram of the issues Tea Party members care about, and the issues Tea Party members are confused about, you’d only see one circle.
I frequently give Claire McCaskill a hard time, and at the moment I am ripping into her, I mean it intensely. I have told her that she should consider this “cover from the left” and to keep doing exactly what she is doing, because truth be told, I couldn’t even pass my own purity test, and I sure don’t have the patience to deal with Mitch McConnell and a bunch of rabble like me giving her hell over what actually amounts to just one tiny little morsel of what is on her plate. It’s a hell of a lot easier being me than it is being Claire McCaskill, that’s for damned sure.
When I came to Kansas City in the 90s so my kids could have a single, shared high school experience, Claire McCaskill was the Jackson County Prosecuting Attorney. I slept soundly at night because when Claire’s office locked up a dangerous thug, they stayed locked up. Prosecutions were tight and by the book (they still are, we don’t let republicans screw things up in KCMO and Jackson County) and there has never been a scandal in our prosecutors office involving faked evidence of cheating to achieve “convictions, no matter what.”
I started thinking about “Senator” McCaskill the minute the polls closed in 2004 and she lost the Governor’s Mansion by an eyelash after John Kerry pulled out of the state with three weeks to go, killing a lot of down-ticket candidtates on the way out. Claire was one of them.
In March 2005, in one of the very first posts I wrote, I was speculating about a Senator Claire McCaskill, before she had even made that first trip to DC to meet with party officials who had decided she could be the best chance we had of taking Harry Truman’s old seat back for the Democrats. But that isn’t why I am dredging up a five-year-old post this morning. I am excerpting it because of the last sentence:
Jim Talent of Missouri faces a tough fight to keep his seat. The freshman senator faces an angry electorate. After turning Red in 2004, Missourians are waking up the morning after and feeling used and duped. This seat can almost certainly be won by a Democrat. Right now it looks like he may face Jeanne Carnahan again, the widow who assumed her husbands seat when he died in a plane crash right before defeating John Ashcroft. Jeanne then lost a special election in 2002 to Talent for the right to serve the remainder of the term. But don’t rule out Clair McCaskill, a tough prosecuter from Kansas City, she ran for state-wide office as auditor, won, and did a stellar job. She lost a squeaker for the Governors Mansion to Matt “The Boy Blunder” Blunt. She may bide her time and wait for the next governors race, but she is a name and a face that Missourian’s know and trust, and she has a record to run on. A McCaskill/Talent race is one I would almost pay to watch, and should she run and win, she should reprise the Truman Committee. We have shitloads of trouble with procurement, but that is nothing compared with the trouble heading down the pike with mercenaries. Excuse me…Contractors. They are a genuine problem, and her skills as both a prosecutor and auditor are sorely needed.
As we all know, she ran, and she won. And her tenure in the Senate so far makes me look really damned prescient.
With her election, Democrats took control of the Senate in January 2007, and I started jumping up and down and yelling for a reprise of the Truman Committee.
The Truman Committee was created by unanimous Senate decree on 01 March 1941. Over the next three years, with Senator Truman at the helm, the committee held hundreds of hearings, traveled thousands of miles to conduct field inspections, and saved millions of dollars in cost over-runs. Senator Truman was not shy about threatening executives with prison time as he whacked greedy corporate snouts out of the public trough. It was through his chairmanship of the Truman Committee that Harry S Truman shed his image as a bagman for the Pendergast political/criminal machine that ran Kansas City and Missouri politics for decades, and set his course for the White House. (For those who are unfamiliar with Big Tom Pendergast…He out-Tammanied Tammany Hall.)
Now we face the need for another Truman Committee to investigate contractor abuses once more.
On Wednesday, 17 January, the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness heard testimony from Thomas F. Gimble, the acting Inspector General (IG) for the Pentagon, and Katherine V. Schinasi, the Managing Director of Acquisitions and Resource management for the Government Accountability Office (GAO). (Links to opening statements are in .pdf format.) Full transcripts are not yet available, but the opening statements of these two career civil servants are disturbing enough.
Mr. Gimble, the IG for the Pentagon testified that the problems he uncovered were widespread and pervasive, and they ranged from rushing purchases to use funds that were about to expire without doing the appropriate market research and cost analysis; to DoD personnel without security clearances authorizing contracts for classified work. Office space was leased for the Counterintelligence Field Activity by using a service contract instead of following required procedures through GSA. Using service contracts constitutes an “end run” around regulation and if not curtailed, will effectively eliminate oversight.
Things haven’t gotten better in the last three years, but I shudder to think where we would be right now if Claire McCaskill hadn’t been on the job during that time, living up to the legacy she inherited when she came from the same place Harry did to take his seat. Like Truman before her, Claire was given a seat on the Armed Services Committee, and soon started doing what I worked my ass off to get her elected to do.
She has been relentless in her time as a Senator going after Contractors, starting with the subcommittee she now chairs that she and I discussed during a Kitchen Table Talk at Penn Valley Community College in 2008, when it was still a concept. (transcript below the fold)
Yesterday, she held another meeting of that subcommittee, and lets just say that she was her usual bulldog self, coming at the rapacious and incompetent jerks with all the ferocity of the prosecutor who defended her community from the crimes of thieves and murderers so ably; and they ought to be quaking about now because she is showing no signs of getting distracted by a shiny object and letting this go.
What has her – and me – righteously exercised right now?
For several years, Afghan police recruits under the tutelage of private U.S. government contractors couldn’t understand why their marksmanship never improved.
The answer became clear earlier this year. Italian contractors also helping to train Afghan volunteers showed them that the sights on their AK-47s and M-16s had never been adjusted.
“We’re paying somebody to teach these people to shoot these weapons, and nobody ever bothered to check their sights?” Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri said, after relating that story at a hearing Thursday.
To McCaskill, who chaired the hearing of the Senate Contracting Oversight panel, it illustrated why the U.S. has spent more than $6 billion on private contractors, but the police-training program remains rife with problems.
“It is an unbelievable, incompetent story of contracts,” she said. “For eight years we have been supposed training the police in Afghanistan. We’ve flushed $6 billion.”
Watch the whole thing:
(Second video after the jump)
Here is the brutal truth…when your country uses mercenaries, your country is on the downward slide. Mercenaries are not loyal to the nation nor the flag nor the Constitution nor the Honor Code nor the chain of command nor the Geneva Conventions. Sometimes they are completely devoid of any legal responsibility whatsoever, and their loyalty is to dollars.
Where it is in a national military’s best interest to bring operations to a close and go home to recruit, regroup and retrain, it is in the best interest of the mercenary to keep operations going as long as possible because if the operations cease, so do their paychecks.
I object to every penny of American taxpayer money that has gone to these bastards. They are all former military and special forces? They know god-damned good and well that you need to adjust the damned sights. I have known that since high school ROTC. Hell, the day before deer season opened when I was ten, my dad and I sighted the rifles we would take the next morning when I went deer huinting the first time.
This was not incompetence. This was willful and deliberate fraud. And it cost lives.
We need criminal prosecutions of some of these bastards, and since they are not living up to their contracts, they sould be subject to clawbacks.
Thank you, Senator McCaskill, for staying on this.
Show Me Progress: I’m that blogger [Blue Girl] she took a shot at, by the way. [audience laughter]
Claire McCaskill: Oh, I didn’t see your computer, honestly. I always assume there are bloggers – [crosstalk]
SMP: I read, I read white papers so other people don’t have to…
Claire McCaskill: There you go. Good for you.
SMP:…and one of them I read was the IG Report…[crosstalk]
Claire McCaskill: Let is know what the blog site is so everybody knows.
SMP: Oh, oh, Show Me Progress.
Claire McCaskill: Show Me Progress, this is Show Me Progress, guys. [applause][inaudible]
SMP: And also ‘They gave us a republic and we intend to keep it’, but that’s, that’s my personal blog. I read the IG Report put out by Stuart Bowen, all five hundred and thirteen pages of it.
Claire McCaskill: Good for you.
SMP: Yeah, my blood pressure’s still through the roof.
Claire McCaskill: Oh, it’s unbelievable.
SMP: I know that you and Jim Webb have been agitating for a reprise of the Truman Committee. In light of this report, do you think we might get something done there and maybe claw back some of that money?
Claire McCaskill: We actually have got something done there. [voice: “Good”.] Our bill passed in the defense authorization last year. The contracting commission has been appointed. It is a bipartisan commission. They are in the process of staffing up. Jim and I have been very active, in fact, I met with one of the commissioners about four weeks ago and talked about some of the staff challenges they’re having and you’re going to see another huge report coming out that is gonna to do even more in terms of a big hearing we’ll have in probably January as it relates to some of the contracting issues. The clawing back part, is going to be harder because of what the defense department has done. And, you know, the clawing back part makes me sick, but what will make me even more sick is if we don’t get this fixed. [voice: “Yeah.”] And believe me, I am boring, how focused I am on this. I mean, my office is sick of me just when we talk about contracting. But, in fact, I’m trying to get a subcommittee created just on government contracting because I think it’s so important.
Courtney Cole, the Democratic Party candidate in the 121st Legislative District, filed her first quarter campaign finance report with the Missouri Ethics Commission today:
Committe: COLE FOR HOUSE
ReportDate:
1. TOTAL RECEIPTS FOR THIS ELECTION PREVIOUSLY REPORTED $23,414.73
2. ALL MONETARY CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED THIS PERIOD $8,365.00
9. TOTAL ALL RECEIPTS THIS ELECTION(SUM 1B + 7A – 8A) $32,429.26
28. MONEY ON HAND AT THE CLOSE OF THIS REPORTING PERIOD (SUM 25 + 26 – 27) $25,457.29
35. TOTAL INDEBTEDNESS AT THE CLOSE OF THIS REPORTING PERIOD (SUM 29 + 30 + 31 – 32 – 33 – 34) $0.00
[emphasis added]
$8,365.00? That’s a good fundraising quarter. She has consistently had impressive fundraising quarters.
And where did the money come from?:
Detailed Summary of Contributions And Loans Received
Committee: COLE FOR HOUSE
Report Date: 4/15/2010
Jefferson Countians for a Democratic Majority Arnold, MO 03/31/2010 $250.00
Conservative Democrats of Missouri Harrisonville, MO 03/30/2010 $500.00
Main Street Values Harrisonville, MO 03/21/2010 $100.00
Central Missouri Blue Collar Workers Kansas City, MO 02/17/2010 $500.00
LEPCI Kansas City, MO 03/17/2010 $100.00
IBEW Local 53 Kansas City, MO 01/21/2010 $350.00
IBEW Local 53 Kansas City, MO 03/23/2010 $350.00
Pipefitters Local 533 Kansas City, MO 02/16/2010 $1,000.00
Teamsters Local 600 Maryland Heights, MO 03/22/2010 $300.00
Friends of Shoemyer Paris, MO 02/23/2010 $50.00
Citizens to Elect Oxford Saint Louis, MO 02/22/2010 $30.00
Jake Hummel Campaign Fund Saint Louis, MO 03/19/2010 $200.00
New Leadership for Missouri St. Louis, MO 02/27/2010 $250.00
IUPAT Washington, DC 01/11/2010 $500.00
Organized labor (working people!), a few office holders, and a ton of small dollar contributions from individuals – many as small as $10.00. Now, that’s grass roots.
And where did the money go?:
Detailed Summary of Expenditures And Contributions Made
Committe: COLE FOR HOUSE
ReportDate: 4/15/2010
A. EXPENDITURES OF $100 OR LESS BY CATEGORY
USPS – Stamps $44.00
Java Junction – Refreshments $25.21
MO Democratic State Party – Filing fee $50.00
Johnson County Central Committee – Donation $45.00
Project Graduation Warrensburg – Donation $50.00
ActBlue – Fundraising $63.00
B. ITEMIZED EXPENDITURES ALL OVER $100 AND ALL PAYMENTS TO CAMPAIGN WORKERS
Lettercraft Printing Lee’s Summit, MO 02/05/2010 Printing $500.34
Beacon Press Lee’s Summit, MO 03/11/2010 Printing $111.90
Big Brothers Big Sisters Warrensburg, MO 03/11/2010 Donation $200.00
1. TOTAL RECEIPTS FOR THIS ELECTION PREVIOUSLY REPORTED $19,612.64
2. ALL MONETARY CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED THIS PERIOD $7,175.30
5. SUBTOTAL MONETARY RECEIPTS THIS PERIOD ( SUM 2A + 3A + 4A ) $7,175.30
6. IN-KIND CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED THIS PERIOD $5,900.00
7. TOTAL ALL RECEIPTS THIS PERIOD (SUM 5A + 6A) $13,075.30
9. TOTAL ALL RECEIPTS THIS ELECTION(SUM 1B + 7A – 8A) $32,687.94
28. MONEY ON HAND AT THE CLOSE OF THIS REPORTING PERIOD (SUM 25 + 26 – 27) $21,006.70
35. TOTAL INDEBTEDNESS AT THE CLOSE OF THIS REPORTING PERIOD (SUM 29 + 30 + 31 – 32 – 33 – 34) $2,000.00
[emphasis added]
That’s a lot of in-kind contributions. Let’s see where the money (and in-kind) came from:
Detailed Summary of Contributions And Loans Received
Committee: CITIZENS FOR HOSKINS
Report Date: 3/31/2010
Denny Hoskins 2008 Warrensburg, MO 03/01/2010 $4,900.00 In-Kind
MO Assessors Association New London, MO 02/02/2010 $300.00
12. TOTAL ANONYMOUS CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED FROM PERSONS GIVING $25 OR LESS $250.30
13. TOTAL MONETARY CONTRIBUTIONS RECEIVED FROM PERSONS GIVING $100 OR LESS $1,725.00
[emphasis added]
Okay, a candidate giving their campaign $4,900.00 in-kind. What’s with that?
Yep, that in-kind stuff doesn’t exactly help with the cash on hand total, does it?
Let’s take a look at expenditures:
Committe: CITIZENS FOR HOSKINS
ReportDate: 3/31/2010
A. EXPENDITURES OF $100 OR LESS BY CATEGORY
Advertisement – $62.00
Supplies – $60.62
Advertisement – $75.00
Supplies – $50.00
Donation – $100.00
Supplies – $58.21
B. ITEMIZED EXPENDITURES ALL OVER $100 AND ALL PAYMENTS TO CAMPAIGN WORKERS
OFFICE DEPOT WARRENSBURG, MO 01/25/2010 ENVELOPES, STAMPS, SUPPLIES $330.38
HEATHER MYERS WARRENSBURG, MO 02/03/2010 CAMPAIGN WORK $400.00
HEATHER MYERS WARRENSBURG,MO 03/02/2010 CAMPAIGN WORK $400.00
Postmaster Warrensburg, MO 03/05/2010 Stamps $176.00
Postmaster Warrensburg, MO 03/22/2010 Stamps $220.00
Midland Printing Warrensburg, MO 03/18/2010 Envelopes $239.86
Fundraising and a campaign worker.
Libertarian Bill Wayne filed a waiver [pdf] with the Missouri Ethics Commission on April 13, 2010 stating that he will neither raise nor spend $500.00 for the campaign cycle.
In a tribute to irony and also the spirit of participatory Democracy, he had a letter to the editor published in the Warrensburg Daily Star-Journal on April 14th complaining that the paper was ignoring third party candidates:
Your list of legislative candidates was incomplete. I filed as the Libertarian Party candidate for 121st District State Representative. Neighboring districts that serve much of Johnson County, the 120th and 122nd, are both contested by the Constitution Party….
….The Daily Star-Journal should not pre-determine which parties and candidates are viable….
Mr. Wayne, I applaud your civic mindedness in writing that letter to the paper and your commitment to American ideals expressed by filing for office. But spending less than $500.00 on your race ain’t gonna get you elected unless lightning strikes. Twice. Aren’t there other like minded Libertarians out there who’d be willing to contribute to your campaign?
