It was the Gubernatorial Election of 2006. The top two candidates locked in a neck and neck race. The polls were all too close for either side to explain away. The Governor was flush with cash and spending freely. The Mayor was strapped for cash and taking out loans, one for a cool $500,000, to ensure competitiveness. Losing because you ran out of money at the end is a terrible way to lose. It worked! The Mayor became the Governor, giving him a platform from which to raise the money to pay back his financiers.
However, there were some lingering problems. As reported in the September 25, 2007, Examiner, O'Malley, Brown return funds nearly a year later, some of the money being used at the end of the campaign last November was somewhat tainted. The Examiner seems to tell us without drawing conclusions for us.
"We regret that there confusion regarding the ability of corporations to make campaign contributions," reads the letter, dated August 13 [2007] from O'Malley/Brown campaign treasurer Martin Cadogan to James Robinson (no relation to this blogger), described as the chief of Morgan Creek Productions. One is driven to wonder, did Robinson independently come up with the idea to write multiple checks to the election committees of 1) Martin O'Malley, 2) Anthony Brown, and 3) O'Malley & Brown – leadership that works, confused after researching Maryland Campaign Law. On the other hand, is it possible that he received counsel, or guidance from someone else? It would be hard to believe that Mr. Cadogan, an experienced attorney could have contributed to the confusion he cites in his letter. Perhaps subsequent stories will tell us the origins of the confusion.
There seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding these contributions. When Common Cause raised the questions last November to the campaigns, the State Board of Elections and the State Prosecutor, the O'Malley campaign responded that it was all a computer glitch erroneously linking the contributions from a variety of sources to Robinson, implying that there were no improper contributions. On a beautiful fall day in September, the spokesperson for the Governor does not retreat, but modifies his response in light of the facts. He now believes that the computer glitched, erroneously linking the contributions, AND that the violations took place. "[O'Malley spokesman Rick] Abbruzzese said, '… once we realized these contributions were made in violation of campaign finance law, we moved quickly to correct it.'" Ten months had passed since Common cause raised the issue. Multiple campaign finance reports had been prepared and filed during that period. Moreover, only the O'Malley campaign entities report, officially, returning any portion of the money. Campaign spokespeople make a living selecting the right word for every official declaration. Her, we are left to determine how Mr. Abbruzzese squares his definition of the word "quickly" with that understood by everyone else.
The State Board of Elections seems a little confused, too, about their responsibilities, in spite of access to excellent legal counsel. They are obligated to report perceived violations of election law to the State Prosecutor. Common Cause brought these alleged suspected violations to their attention in November 2006. They did not refer this to the Special Prosecutor because Common Cause said they would. In spite of some wags assertions, Common Cause does not represent, and is not the agent for any state agency.
Throughout this story, reporter Jaime Malarkey has presented quotes from administration officials that make the nose turn up. It is the statements and not the paper that reeks of weeks (or months) old fish.
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