What do you do when the person responsible for overseeing our elections fails miserably in following the very laws put into place that assure fair elections? In other words: who watches “The Watcher”?

In political campaigning great efforts have been made, and systems put into place, to assure a level playing field when it comes to the rules candidates play by. Much like the processes of “discovery” and “disclosure” in our court system which assure no surprises that might unfairly influence a jury, the rules for candidates and their committees also assures that we the voters are not unfairly influenced in our vote by the hiding of significant information.

One of the authorities that candidates report to locally is the Office of the County Clerk. In addition to the County Clerk’s Office, candidates for state offices and some county offices must also report the details of their campaigns to the statewide authority: the Missouri Ethics Commission (MEC). Since it wouldn’t be appropriate for the sitting County Clerk to have regulatory oversight over their own (and their opponents’) campaigns, candidates running for the position of County Clerk are obviously required to file with the MEC….

Obviously, that is, unless you are the County Clerk in Buchanan County. Despite the fact that both of her Democratic primary election opponents and her Republican general election opponent managed to properly file multiple reports with the Missouri Ethics Commission, Kelley Stahlin, our Buchanan County Clerk of 5 months who claims to have many years of election “experience” somehow felt that those rules didn’t apply to her. From the time she first began accepting campaign contributions on January 20,  until she finally got around to filing her reports with the MEC (on July 20th, just 2 weeks before the August primary), 6 full months had passed without her providing legally required campaign details. That’s half a year!

Ethics laws have been established that set deadlines for filing information publicly. They establish requirements for disclosing not only who is responsible for accepting, disbursing, and maintaining the records of a candidate’s campaign funds, but who has contributed and how much. Every other candidate for County Clerk managed to follow the rules, but somehow the person responsible for making sure every other local candidate followed those rules didn’t follow the rules!

That’s why when it comes to County Clerk candidates, the Missouri Ethics Commission (MEC) is the watcher that watches “The Watcher”. And in the case of the Buchanan County Clerk and candidate, Kelley Stahlin, it’s a good thing they do!

In the 6 months that passed since she started accepting contributions, the following reports were never provided through the Missouri Ethics Commission for review by her opposing candidates as is required by state statutes:

A) She failed to properly form a campaign committee and report it within 20 days to the MEC despite accepting over $2,000 from a single contributor in February. By the time she did finally file the required report, it was only 14 days before the election. State law requires committees be formed more than 30 days before the election (that would have been by July 4). In addition, once the information about her campaign was finally filed on July 20th, it was backdated to the nonspecific date of “February 2010”.
B) She improperly reported loans she had received by failing to correctly indicate who was responsible for repaying loans  totaling $4,000 that were made to her campaign. (The person who gave the loan was also responsible for paying it back? To themself?)
C) She failed to file the first quarter contributions and expenditures report that was due on April 15th. It was filed on July 20th, 96 days (more than 3 months!) late. We now know she had accepted campaign contributions totaling over $2,700.
D) She failed to file the second quarter contributions and expenditures report that was due on July 15th. It was also filed on July 20th, 5 days late, when we eventually found out she had accepted an additional $3,400 in contributions.

Ethics laws were put into place to ensure a fair process. As the current County Clerk, Stahlin has no excuse for failing to follow the laws that she is responsible for upholding. It was 6 months into her campaign before she got around to it. Maybe the $1,000+ in fines that she faces (which are proscribed for filing late at $10 per day) will be a wake up call for her. Despite being our local election authority, she is either ignorant of the laws everyone else managed to follow, or as “The Watcher” she thinks she is above those laws. But don’t worry, it WILL be a wake up call for us, the voters, in November… since ultimately WE CHOOSE “The Watcher”.

Missouri GOP obtains documents exposing cozy relationship between Robin Carnahan and ACORN

The Missouri Republican Party today launched a new web video and website—www.acorncarnahan.com—after obtaining documents that clearly show a close relationship between Robin Carnahan and ACORN.

Despite more than a dozen convictions in Missouri, the submission of tens of thousands of questionable or false voter registration forms, and shocking videos that show the group promoting criminal activities, Robin Carnahan has had ample opportunity to distance herself from ACORN. But during her five years as the state’s highest ranking elections official, Carnahan has never condemned the embattled liberal group.

Although Robin Carnahan has remained silent, the communication between her office and ACORN speaks loud and clear. From meetings in her office, to events, to research, documents obtained by the Missouri Republican Party make it clear that Robin Carnahan and ACORN are too close for comfort.

Among the more than 1,400 pages of documents were startling examples of Carnahan’s friendly relationship with ACORN. A few examples:

• Michael Slater (Project Vote Executive Director) to Ron Berry (SOS Political Director), 3/15/2007: “We very much appreciate having the ability to share information with y’all.” (view)
• Michael Slater to Mindy Mazur (SOS Chief of Staff) and Ron Berry, 3/21/2007: “I have a very quick research question… I presume Republicans beat the drum of voter fraud as a rationale for the photo ID law, can you steer me to a source to find a quote providing an example of that?”

  Mindy Mazur responds to Michael Slater, 3/21/2007: “There’s one from last year on ‘perception’… ill (sic) see if I can find it.”

  Mindy Mazur responds to Michael Slater, 3/21/2007: “I have a few others too… will send shortly.” (view all)

• Jeff Ordower (Head organizer for ACORN) to Ron Berry, 10/2/2008: “Again, we’ll do an event whenever Robin can make it to St. Louis, though book closing date is best.” (view)
• Jeff Ordower to Carnahan staff and others after the defeat of the photo id legislation in the Missouri General Assembly, 5/17/2008: “This was a great team effort. Thanks everyone for your help.” (view )

Over the years, Carnahan has maintained close ties with ACORN—furthering their goals and whitewashing the record of corruption and fraud.

In 2006, Carnahan ordered the St. Louis Board of Elections to approve more than 5,000 questionable registrations submitted by ACORN. Earlier this year, she issued a report on the 2008 elections, yet she failed to mention ACORN’s organized effort to commit voter fraud across the state by submitting thousands of fraudulent voter registrations to county election boards in Missouri. ACORN even claimed that Carnahan had been “helpful” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, April 24, 2008) in its lawsuit against the state of Missouri—a lawsuit that ended after the state agreed to pay ACORN $450,000.

Now, ACORN is repaying the favor as part of a liberal coalition funding false attack ads to benefit her campaign for U.S. Senate.

TAKE ACTION

• Watch the video
• View the evidence for yourself
• Sign the petition demanding that Robin Carnahan cut all her ties with ACORN
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• Forward this message to your friends!

MCVPAC has uncovered some interesting facts today regarding the appointment, or lack thereof, of agents to Missouri’s License Offices:

· Of the 139 license offices that have been put up for bid since Governor Jay took over, 18 have had a bid process that has been closed for over 110 days.

· Of those 18 that have had a bid process closed for over 110 days, only one has received an appointment to date (St. Charles — The bid process was closed for over four months (128 days!) before an agent was named).

· Twelve of the 17 that are awaiting an appointment are in the Kansas City or St. Louis Metro Areas.  These are some of the most lucrative offices.

· The Liberty office bid process has been closed for 133 days with still no agent named!

If these appointments are based solely on a point system, MCVPAC wonders what the delay in naming these agents could be.  Could the Governor be waiting until the July 4^th weekend to name his cronies to some of these lucrative positions, hoping his loyal media buries the stories in their coverage?

For all the fuss our counterpart Roy Temple at FiredUP! has made over the alleged investigations into alleged corruption in Jefferson City, we wonder how he missed this report from the St. Louis Post-dispatch:

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/politics/story/6767CA2F57B8C57286257593000A3D11?OpenDocument

Patronage Continues Under Governor Jay

MCVPAC doesn’t want to say it, but we told you so in our previous report. Governor Jay Nixon, in referencing Missouri’s license fee offices, announced early in his tenure that, “The era of office patronage ends today.” Maybe it ended that day, but less than 100 days into his reign, it is back.

The Missouri Department of Revenue issued a press release that Doug Galaske has been awarded the contract for Moberly, one of the original six offices put up for bid. A Google search on Mr. Galaske turns up two very interesting facts:

Galaske is listed as the contact for the Randolph County Democrats at the State Party website at http://www.missouridems.org/local.asp?g=RandolphCountyDemocrats

Galaske and his wife Cheri are shown in Missouri Ethics Commission reports to have been longtime substantial donors to Governor Jay and his cohorts:

For Year 2008:

For Year 2007:

For Year 2006:

Who says the dollar isn’t worth anything? For $3349.64 you can buy a Department of Revenue contract in Moberly Missouri.

This should be front page news will all media outlets, but MCVPAC doubts this will barely be a ripple with Nixon’s media allies. Let MCVPAC be the first to say that Governor Nixon blatantly lied to the people of Missouri.