I sent notice that I would be challenging in court the Maryland governor's race and the democratic primary because of systemic violations of election law.
WBAL came back saying the democrats left out did not have the money to run a statewide race. Well, the republicans in the race did not either yet the publicity they received being included in all election coverage allowed them to bring in a modest amount. No WBAL---you excluded because of platform.
Dan Rodricks wrote an Opinion piece that is so galling it takes your breath away. He states that even if the press gives you candidates that you do not want---it is your duty to vote for the least worst. There's a reason Dan runs when he sees me in the grocery store.
Dan is WYPR and WYPR is the worst offender of free and fair elections and actually said on air----
IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE CANDIDATES WE PUT IN FRONT OF YOU THEN DON'T VOTE.
They mean it! They work hard to make sure the same crony pols get into office each election by censuring any candidate not committed to the status quo.
Dan Rodricks envisions an election more third world than now for Maryland. He sees Saadam Hussein and Putin of Russia telling the citizens they must come out and vote for them or else. Required voting in order to make it appear there are elections. This is what is happening today in the US and Maryland is one of the worst offenders of public justice and civil rights and equal protection. The pols do not even think the citizens of Maryland have those rights. Doug Gansler ran on the issue of dismantling the public prosecutor's office, probably the only legal agency left in Maryland that would have been used for public justice.
The idea the citizens of America are going to sit and have media and 501c3s controlled by the very pols making politics crony in Maryland and elsewhere WILL NOT FLY.
WE WILL NOT BE TOLD WE WILL VOTE FOR A PERSON WE HATE THE LEAST.
Yeah Dan----like that is what is turning off voters---an empty podium and negative campaigning....a stage full of neo-liberals couldn't be it!
For the Maryland 80 percent, still time to get off the bench Holding your nose to vote is still better than not voting at all
Dan Rodricks 10:49 p.m. EDT, June 27, 2014 WYPR
Among the 80 percent of registered Republicans and Democrats who stayed away from Maryland's primary was Sally Staehle of Baltimore. She wrote me a letter to explain why she took a pass on voting this time around.
"I turned off to local politics when I saw a commercial of an empty podium at a debate, with a voice-over that said somebody didn't bother to show up for the debate, how can we trust him? I just couldn't bear to even try to figure out what that was all about. I don't even remember who the commercial was for."
You can understand Staehle's reluctance to waste mental energy on a campaign ad. But it would not have been hard to figure that one out.
What I assume Staehle saw was a TV spot slamming Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown for skipping the WBFF-TV debate a few days earlier. His challengers, Attorney General Doug Gansler and Del. Heather Mizeur, participated in the debate and appeared on screen, an empty lectern bearing Brown's name between them.
Gansler's camp paid for the ad. ("If Anthony Brown won't even show up in Baltimore to debate," it said, "how can we trust him to stand up for us as governor?")
While Staehle might not have liked or understood the ad, Brown's decision to skip the WBFF debate was fair game; he deserved to be knocked for it.
Staehle cited another factor — the proposal by Mizeur to legalize and tax marijuana to pay for an expansion of prekindergarten education.
"Early childhood professionals work really hard to help children learn and develop their brains and sharpen their wits," Staehle wrote. "Using drug money to fund their education just seemed so stupid that I couldn't pay any more attention."
Fair point. But while Mizeur's proposal might have been a reason to reject a particular candidate, it wasn't a reason to reject an entire election.
I understand how negative campaigning and foolish grandstanding turn people off. But that's just the reason voters need to be informed — so they can separate the baloney salesmen from the real deals.
Being a good citizen calls for discernment, the ability to judge well. It means paying attention so you can vote with some confidence that you're picking the best candidate for a particular job.
As we just saw with Tuesday's election, with its embarrassingly low voter turnout, that doesn't always happen (see results of the state's attorney primary in Baltimore).
Some people argue that it's better this way — let an informed, civic-minded minority do the voting.
I don't accept that; no one should.
And I disagree with the sentiment that foolishness and negativity in a campaign are reasons to belong to Maryland's 80 percent of nonvoters. Sometimes you have to hold your nose and vote, but you have to vote — or else you don't get to complain about the quality of your government.
I've heard over the last week from some of the biggest complainers in our state, and they're mostly Republicans. They're bitter about being outnumbered 2 to 1 by Democrats, and they cite that as a reason for not voting. One tweeted that it's futile to vote for Larry Hogan because, if elected, a Republican governor won't be able to accomplish anything with a legislature dominated by Democrats.
The nonvoting Republicans don't understand that by sitting out elections, belonging to the sedentary 80 percent, they push their party closer to irrelevancy.
What Republicans should be doing is pushing their party closer to the center and appealing to some of Maryland's 650,000 independents. Less extreme ideology and more focus on making government work, instead of tearing it down, would serve the GOP. It would serve both parties.
It might bring back voters like Sally Staehle.
"I work very hard and am a contributing citizen," she wrote. "But there was nothing for me to hold onto in our local politics. I care very deeply about all the trash in the streets I walk on, how dirty the harbor and bay are, and the endless murders that go on in our city. I am sick and tired of seeing people spit in the streets and of smelling urine at the bus stops where I transfer. And I wait too long for buses sometimes. This is a start of what I care about immediately."
Roger that. But that's exactly why we vote, especially in local elections.
All that Staehle mentions, all that quality-of-life stuff, flows back to the people who run your city, your county, your state, your country. Trash removal, road repairs, aircraft safety, police and fire response, schools and universities, fair and firm criminal justice, vigilance on the environment, public health and financial markets — you can trace all of those things back to someone in power and, ultimately, someone accountable on Election Day.
If you were part of the 80 percent this time, OK. I won't bring it up again.
But consider coming off the bench; the general election is Tuesday, Nov. 4. I think this constitutes adequate notice.
Doug Gansler ran for governor with a promise to end funding for the public prosecutor's office. Who is Doug hoping to catch with that promise?
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Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler ran on an issue of ending the state prosecutor's office. Well, no wonder----Doug did not even know it was there obviously----you don't have systemic corruption and fraud with an active state prosecutor's office. This is how empowered these crony pols are becoming. To tell the citizens of Maryland you will have no recourse in criminal activity is to end your status as citizen and equal protection.
Note that one of the duties of this position is election law violations. This office is like the evolutionary appendage lost over millions of years from lack of use!
Mission
The Office of State Prosecutor was established by Constitutional amendment and legislation in 1976 (Chapter 612, Acts of 1976, ratified Nov. 1976). The State Prosecutor’s Office began operation January, 1977.
The State Prosecutor may investigate on his own initiative, or at the request of the Governor, the Attorney General, the General Assembly, the State Ethics Commission, or a State’s Attorney, certain criminal offenses. These include: 1) State election law violations; 2) State public ethics law violations; 3) State bribery law violations involving public officials or employees; 4) misconduct in office by public officials or employees; and 5) extortion, perjury, or obstruction of justice related to any of the above.
At the request of the Governor, Attorney General, General Assembly, or a State’s Attorney, the State Prosecutor also may investigate alleged crimes conducted partly in Maryland and partly in another jurisdiction, or in more than one political subdivision of the State.
If a violation of the criminal law has occurred, and the State Prosecutor recommends prosecution, he makes a confidential report of his findings and recommendations to the Attorney General and the State’s Attorney having jurisdiction to prosecute the matter. Such a report need not be made to the State’s Attorney, however, if the State Prosecutor’s findings and recommendations contain allegations of offenses committed by the State’s Attorney. If the State’s Attorney to whom the report is rendered fails to file charges within 45 days in accordance with the State Prosecutor’s recommendations, the State Prosecutor may prosecute such offenses. The State Prosecutor may immediately prosecute offenses set forth in the report and recommendations if they are alleged to have been committed by a State’s Attorney.
Where no violation of the criminal law has occurred or prosecution is not recommended, the State Prosecutor reports his/her findings to the agency mentioned in paragraph one above that requested the investigation. The report is made available to the public if the subject of the investigation so requests.
In investigating and prosecuting cases in which he is authorized to act, the State Prosecutor has all the powers and duties of a State’s Attorney.
The State Prosecutor is nominated by the State Prosecutor Selection and Disabilities Commission and appointed by the Governor for a term of six years and until his successor is appointed and qualifies. He may be removed only for misconduct in office, persistent failure to perform the duties of the office, or conduct prejudicial to the proper administration of justice. (State Government Article, Sections 9-1201 thru 1213, Annotated Code of Maryland).
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When you have a ranking of 44th worst in finance disclosure laws and you are ranked the same nationally for fraud, corruption, and lack of transparency you have a problem with campaign donations. If you are Doug Gansler and spent 8 years as Maryland Attorney General 'seeing no fraud and corruption' as billions are lost to the Maryland state coffers each year----you will certain have a campaign war chest. If you have 8 years of privatizing all that is public and giving a record number of corporate tax breaks and subsidy-----you are going to have a war chest.
The election of an unknown in the Virginia race against the top republican in Congress Eric Cantor-----running a grassroots campaign against a candidate with millions of dollars in his war chest shows elections do not have to be run on money.
Below you see the republicans in the Maryland governor's race having very little in their campaign bank----Lollar having almost nothing and that is said to be his own money. Yet, all these republicans were covered in the media and allowed access to all forums and debates. So, when WBAL states after receiving notice of the pending lawsuit challenging the election results for governor because of the censuring of democratic candidates that these democrats did not have the money to run a statewide race-----THEY ARE LYING. CINDY WALSH WAS LEFT OUT BECAUSE OF PLATFORM!
'Del. Ronald A. George (Anne Arundel) missed the filing deadline Tuesday night because of what his campaign said were technical problems. His campaign said he has about $40,000 cash on hand and had raised $69,000 since the end of the legislative session in April.
Charles County businessman Charles Lollar continues to run his campaign on a shoestring budget and had about $18,000 in the bank as of last week, according to his report. Lollar might not be allowed to spend that money, as a judge recently ruled that the campaign owes a political database software vendor in Northern Virginia more than $20,000'.
'Maryland has the 44th-worst-ranked set of campaign finance disclosure laws in the country, according to a UCLA study'.
In Md. governor's race, Baltimore no longer epicenter for campaign cash
By Aaron C. Davis and Luke Rosiak Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 30, 2010; 10:10 PM
Baltimore and its suburbs have for decades served as the epicenter of political fundraising in Maryland. Businesses atop the city's downtown high-rises, often with views of the shimmering Inner Harbor, and wealthy residents farther out in the tidy suburbs that ring the city's version of a beltway have most often opened their checkbooks for candidates running for governor.
Not this year. Down Interstate 95, across the twisty northern span of the Capital Beltway, and tucked in a cluster of gated mansions in Potomac is Maryland's new capital for money in politics.
Just outside the District line, Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) and former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) have collected more money from Montgomery County's 20854 Zip code than from any other.
"It's mostly Democratic around here, as you can probably see," said John Sverha, a retired former hospital president, motioning late last week to O'Malley campaign signs in yards flanking his relatively modest brick home off Falls Road. "I guess I gave this year to Ehrlich out of principle. I'm expecting a tax hike if O'Malley is reelected."
Sverha's $50 check stands out as noticeably tiny in Potomac. Down the block, a neighbor wrote one to O'Malley for $500. Around the corner, another for $1,000. And thanks largely to donations from a few hundred who live in tree-lined estates with four- and six-car garages north of Congressional Golf Course, the total for Zip code 20854 last week stood at nearly $600,000.
The Washington suburbs' emergence as a fundraising powerhouse, however, has done little to shed light on the industry and business interests working most intently to influence the governor's race.
In fact, good-government advocates say, the shift has only highlighted how, because of weak state laws, much less is known about the way money influences politics in Maryland compared with national races next door in Washington.
For its progressive reputation in many other areas, Maryland has the 44th-worst-ranked set of campaign finance disclosure laws in the country, according to a UCLA study. Donors are shielded from having to disclose the names of their employers, what industries they work in and other basic data commonly required to contribute to federal campaigns.
"When all you can see is that John Jones from Baltimore or Jane Smith from Washington is giving $4,000 to Martin O'Malley, that doesn't mean much," said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies at UCLA. "But if you can see that John works for a company where a bunch of other people are giving money and he's a secretary - and how can he afford $4,000? - it raises a whole other set of questions."
Maryland's lack of disclosures makes it impossible to come up with a comprehensive portrait of the interests behind the majority of $26 million being spent to elect and curry favor with the next governor, but a Washington Post analysis identified the industries associated with 40 percent of the money contributed to the two men over the past eight years.
The donors' employers and industries were identified through federal records from the Center for Responsive Politics, information from the National Institute on Money in State Politics, and Post research.
The analysis found that many with related interests are giving more than the state's $4,000 cap for a single political campaign and its $10,000 cap in a four-year period. Some are donating through multiple family members or divisions of a company.
One real estate developer has given 14 donations through 11 different names totaling more than $28,000 to O'Malley since 2007. Five members of the family of Craftmark Homes' Kenneth Malm gave $2,000 each to Ehrlich in a single day in May.
The analysis also turned up more than 150 businesses, some involved in hot-button industries, that have hedged their bets by donating more than half a million dollars to both candidates.
Penn National Gaming, which last month opened Hollywood Casino Perryville, the state's first slots casino, gave $16,000 to O'Malley's campaign on a single day in August. Penn and its political action committee split contributions that day. Each gave two maximum contributions to two different O'Malley campaign accounts.
Gambling interests have given at least $143,000 to the men's campaigns, mostly to O'Malley, in the past two cycles.
Merritt Properties and its leader, Leroy Merritt, which in September unveiled plans for a nearly 40-acre office park for military contractors near the Aberdeen Proving Ground, has in the past two years donated $24,000 to Ehrlich and $6,000 to O'Malley.
Merritt gave 19 contributions totaling $57,000 through 15 entities, including at least 10 differently numbered limited liability corporations. He's given heavily to both candidates but has favored Ehrlich.
Swaths of donors connected to utility companies, health-care providers, defense contractors and construction industries also appear to be betting on O'Malley.
The governor has aggressively moved to implement the federal health-care overhaul approved by Congress, while Ehrlich has vowed to slow it down.
A slice of large donors who work for hospitals and nursing homes favored Ehrlich four years ago. This time they have given more than $120,000 to O'Malley and about $26,600 to Ehrlich.
Total donations from a similar slice of top contributors who work in construction amount to about half of what they were four years ago, near the peak of the housing bubble. The group has given more than $500,000 to O'Malley and $235,000 to Ehrlich. O'Malley's administration has overseen the spending of billions of dollars in federal stimulus money and increased funding for school construction.
Federally registered lobbyists have also given more than $63,500 to O'Malley and nearly $13,000 to Ehrlich.
Combined, the businesses banking on an O'Malley win go a long way to explaining the governor's multimillion-dollar fundraising advantage. As of early last week, O'Malley had raised nearly $12 million to Ehrlich's $7.2 million for the full four-year fundraising cycle. National groups have filled in an estimated $7 million in additional campaign spending, split roughly evenly on both campaigns.
But another criticized feature of Maryland's campaign finance laws means political contributions made in the final weeks before an election are not revealed until weeks later. Nothing is known, for example, about the sources of $800,000 raised in a single day this month for O'Malley at fundraisers headlined by former president Bill Clinton and Vice President Biden.
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You cannot raise contributions if your name and message is nowhere to be seen in the major venues. As citizens we have the right to run for office and we have the right to go to the polls intelligent of all of the election platforms and candidates. In Maryland there is not one venue the state or local government sponsors in educating the voters on any race. The public universities were the hotbed of politics and political discussion and that is where the hostility against my candidacy was most harsh. It is because of the corporatization of these campuses. When you leave the public in the hands of media for most election education and then you allow those institutions to tell the citizens of Maryland----IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE CANDIDATES WE PUT IN FRONT OF YOU THEN DON'T VOTE----you do not have an election system.
Below you see how little was needed to defeat what everyone in America wants to defeat whether republican or democrat-----crony capitalism ----neo-coservatism and neo-liberalism.
The Tea Party is the political opposite of labor and justice but they are working hard to get rid of global corporate control and protect the US Constitution as progressive labor and justice.
Dave Versus Goliath, By the Numbers
by Russ Choma on June 11, 2014
Dave Brat is congratulated last night after defeating House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. (AP Photo/Richmond Times-Dispatch, P. Kevin Morley)
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s campaign spent more money on food — $168,000 on steakhouses alone — than Dave Brat did on his entire campaign. But it wasn’t just steak. On April 6, the Cantor campaign spent $790 at Proof, a downtown D.C. restaurant, where the cheapest entree on the menu is a “Napoleon of Crispy Tofu, Wild Mushrooms & Spring Vegetables,” which costs $25. Brat’s biggest food expense was $789 for catering from Honey Baked Ham in Richmond (where boxed lunches go for $8.29 apiece) on May 8.
Cantor has been widely admired — inside the Beltway — for his successful fundraising operation and his largesse in donating to other candidates, especially from his leadership PAC, Every Republican Is Crucial (ERIC PAC). But last night, Cantor’s brand turned from ERIC to epic — as in, failure of historic proportions. Since 2000, there have been 30 instances of incumbents losing to primary challengers, but there is no comparison in terms of the chasm in spending between the winner and loser. According to an OpenSecrets.org analysis, Cantor spent more than Brat by a ratio of almost 41-to-1, a margin that is close to ten times wider than the spending spread between contestants in any other race on the list of 30.
Brat’s rhetoric railed against big-money Washington, decrying lobbyists and Wall Street types who funnel cash to leaders in both parties. And despite his severe financial disadvantage, it’s apparent that he managed to tap into a public anger that isn’t much affected by campaign ads or sophisticated strategizing.
A look at each campaign’s spending in late March helps tell the tale. On March 25, Cantor wrote checks for $8,900 for private jet services, $6,700 for food for a fundraising event (the Washington, D.C. catering company’s website is currently touting its “Star Spangled & Sumptuous” menu, featuring chilled roasted salmon with cucumber banchan) and $1,017 for legal consulting from McGuire Woods. Brat’s campaign had no expenses on March 25, but the day before, it spent $87 at WalMart on “office supplies.”
While Cantor’s campaign was once admired in Washington for its high-flying ways and is now being mocked for its lavish food expenses, Brat’s campaign spending was so minimal that it’s hard to detect a pattern. His largest vendor was a payroll firm ($29,700), followed by Concentric Direct ($25,300), a small political consulting firm that, according to its website, had previously overseen Mitt Romney’s primary win in Wyoming and also had success in Cleveland city council races.
One of the more seasoned political operatives working for Brat was his direct mail consultant, Dennis Fusaro, a longtime Virginia conservative activist who recently blew the whistle on what he said were illegal campaign activities at the National Right To Work Committee. Fusaro was paid $500 by Brat’s campaign; he told OpenSecrets Blog that he and a handful of others ran a shoestring operation, mailing out 40,000 introduction letters. Fusaro added that he helped coordinate another 12,000 phone calls to gun owners. According to Brat’s filings, about $21,000 was spent printing mailers and making robocalls.
Similarly, it was already widely known that Cantor’s biggest donor was Wall Street. And though his fundraising numbers — $5.4 million so far in this election cycle — had been the envy of congressional colleagues, they are now the symbol of how out-of-touch he was. Conversely, it’s almost impossible to profile Brat’s typical donor, because he had so few.
Other gleanings from the campaigns’ reports:
WBAL came back saying the democrats left out did not have the money to run a statewide race. Well, the republicans in the race did not either yet the publicity they received being included in all election coverage allowed them to bring in a modest amount. No WBAL---you excluded because of platform.
Dan Rodricks wrote an Opinion piece that is so galling it takes your breath away. He states that even if the press gives you candidates that you do not want---it is your duty to vote for the least worst. There's a reason Dan runs when he sees me in the grocery store.
Dan is WYPR and WYPR is the worst offender of free and fair elections and actually said on air----
IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE CANDIDATES WE PUT IN FRONT OF YOU THEN DON'T VOTE.
They mean it! They work hard to make sure the same crony pols get into office each election by censuring any candidate not committed to the status quo.
Dan Rodricks envisions an election more third world than now for Maryland. He sees Saadam Hussein and Putin of Russia telling the citizens they must come out and vote for them or else. Required voting in order to make it appear there are elections. This is what is happening today in the US and Maryland is one of the worst offenders of public justice and civil rights and equal protection. The pols do not even think the citizens of Maryland have those rights. Doug Gansler ran on the issue of dismantling the public prosecutor's office, probably the only legal agency left in Maryland that would have been used for public justice.
The idea the citizens of America are going to sit and have media and 501c3s controlled by the very pols making politics crony in Maryland and elsewhere WILL NOT FLY.
WE WILL NOT BE TOLD WE WILL VOTE FOR A PERSON WE HATE THE LEAST.
Yeah Dan----like that is what is turning off voters---an empty podium and negative campaigning....a stage full of neo-liberals couldn't be it!
For the Maryland 80 percent, still time to get off the bench Holding your nose to vote is still better than not voting at all
Dan Rodricks 10:49 p.m. EDT, June 27, 2014 WYPR
Among the 80 percent of registered Republicans and Democrats who stayed away from Maryland's primary was Sally Staehle of Baltimore. She wrote me a letter to explain why she took a pass on voting this time around.
"I turned off to local politics when I saw a commercial of an empty podium at a debate, with a voice-over that said somebody didn't bother to show up for the debate, how can we trust him? I just couldn't bear to even try to figure out what that was all about. I don't even remember who the commercial was for."
You can understand Staehle's reluctance to waste mental energy on a campaign ad. But it would not have been hard to figure that one out.
What I assume Staehle saw was a TV spot slamming Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown for skipping the WBFF-TV debate a few days earlier. His challengers, Attorney General Doug Gansler and Del. Heather Mizeur, participated in the debate and appeared on screen, an empty lectern bearing Brown's name between them.
Gansler's camp paid for the ad. ("If Anthony Brown won't even show up in Baltimore to debate," it said, "how can we trust him to stand up for us as governor?")
While Staehle might not have liked or understood the ad, Brown's decision to skip the WBFF debate was fair game; he deserved to be knocked for it.
Staehle cited another factor — the proposal by Mizeur to legalize and tax marijuana to pay for an expansion of prekindergarten education.
"Early childhood professionals work really hard to help children learn and develop their brains and sharpen their wits," Staehle wrote. "Using drug money to fund their education just seemed so stupid that I couldn't pay any more attention."
Fair point. But while Mizeur's proposal might have been a reason to reject a particular candidate, it wasn't a reason to reject an entire election.
I understand how negative campaigning and foolish grandstanding turn people off. But that's just the reason voters need to be informed — so they can separate the baloney salesmen from the real deals.
Being a good citizen calls for discernment, the ability to judge well. It means paying attention so you can vote with some confidence that you're picking the best candidate for a particular job.
As we just saw with Tuesday's election, with its embarrassingly low voter turnout, that doesn't always happen (see results of the state's attorney primary in Baltimore).
Some people argue that it's better this way — let an informed, civic-minded minority do the voting.
I don't accept that; no one should.
And I disagree with the sentiment that foolishness and negativity in a campaign are reasons to belong to Maryland's 80 percent of nonvoters. Sometimes you have to hold your nose and vote, but you have to vote — or else you don't get to complain about the quality of your government.
I've heard over the last week from some of the biggest complainers in our state, and they're mostly Republicans. They're bitter about being outnumbered 2 to 1 by Democrats, and they cite that as a reason for not voting. One tweeted that it's futile to vote for Larry Hogan because, if elected, a Republican governor won't be able to accomplish anything with a legislature dominated by Democrats.
The nonvoting Republicans don't understand that by sitting out elections, belonging to the sedentary 80 percent, they push their party closer to irrelevancy.
What Republicans should be doing is pushing their party closer to the center and appealing to some of Maryland's 650,000 independents. Less extreme ideology and more focus on making government work, instead of tearing it down, would serve the GOP. It would serve both parties.
It might bring back voters like Sally Staehle.
"I work very hard and am a contributing citizen," she wrote. "But there was nothing for me to hold onto in our local politics. I care very deeply about all the trash in the streets I walk on, how dirty the harbor and bay are, and the endless murders that go on in our city. I am sick and tired of seeing people spit in the streets and of smelling urine at the bus stops where I transfer. And I wait too long for buses sometimes. This is a start of what I care about immediately."
Roger that. But that's exactly why we vote, especially in local elections.
All that Staehle mentions, all that quality-of-life stuff, flows back to the people who run your city, your county, your state, your country. Trash removal, road repairs, aircraft safety, police and fire response, schools and universities, fair and firm criminal justice, vigilance on the environment, public health and financial markets — you can trace all of those things back to someone in power and, ultimately, someone accountable on Election Day.
If you were part of the 80 percent this time, OK. I won't bring it up again.
But consider coming off the bench; the general election is Tuesday, Nov. 4. I think this constitutes adequate notice.
Doug Gansler ran for governor with a promise to end funding for the public prosecutor's office. Who is Doug hoping to catch with that promise?
_________________________________
Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler ran on an issue of ending the state prosecutor's office. Well, no wonder----Doug did not even know it was there obviously----you don't have systemic corruption and fraud with an active state prosecutor's office. This is how empowered these crony pols are becoming. To tell the citizens of Maryland you will have no recourse in criminal activity is to end your status as citizen and equal protection.
Note that one of the duties of this position is election law violations. This office is like the evolutionary appendage lost over millions of years from lack of use!
Mission
The Office of State Prosecutor was established by Constitutional amendment and legislation in 1976 (Chapter 612, Acts of 1976, ratified Nov. 1976). The State Prosecutor’s Office began operation January, 1977.
The State Prosecutor may investigate on his own initiative, or at the request of the Governor, the Attorney General, the General Assembly, the State Ethics Commission, or a State’s Attorney, certain criminal offenses. These include: 1) State election law violations; 2) State public ethics law violations; 3) State bribery law violations involving public officials or employees; 4) misconduct in office by public officials or employees; and 5) extortion, perjury, or obstruction of justice related to any of the above.
At the request of the Governor, Attorney General, General Assembly, or a State’s Attorney, the State Prosecutor also may investigate alleged crimes conducted partly in Maryland and partly in another jurisdiction, or in more than one political subdivision of the State.
If a violation of the criminal law has occurred, and the State Prosecutor recommends prosecution, he makes a confidential report of his findings and recommendations to the Attorney General and the State’s Attorney having jurisdiction to prosecute the matter. Such a report need not be made to the State’s Attorney, however, if the State Prosecutor’s findings and recommendations contain allegations of offenses committed by the State’s Attorney. If the State’s Attorney to whom the report is rendered fails to file charges within 45 days in accordance with the State Prosecutor’s recommendations, the State Prosecutor may prosecute such offenses. The State Prosecutor may immediately prosecute offenses set forth in the report and recommendations if they are alleged to have been committed by a State’s Attorney.
Where no violation of the criminal law has occurred or prosecution is not recommended, the State Prosecutor reports his/her findings to the agency mentioned in paragraph one above that requested the investigation. The report is made available to the public if the subject of the investigation so requests.
In investigating and prosecuting cases in which he is authorized to act, the State Prosecutor has all the powers and duties of a State’s Attorney.
The State Prosecutor is nominated by the State Prosecutor Selection and Disabilities Commission and appointed by the Governor for a term of six years and until his successor is appointed and qualifies. He may be removed only for misconduct in office, persistent failure to perform the duties of the office, or conduct prejudicial to the proper administration of justice. (State Government Article, Sections 9-1201 thru 1213, Annotated Code of Maryland).
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When you have a ranking of 44th worst in finance disclosure laws and you are ranked the same nationally for fraud, corruption, and lack of transparency you have a problem with campaign donations. If you are Doug Gansler and spent 8 years as Maryland Attorney General 'seeing no fraud and corruption' as billions are lost to the Maryland state coffers each year----you will certain have a campaign war chest. If you have 8 years of privatizing all that is public and giving a record number of corporate tax breaks and subsidy-----you are going to have a war chest.
The election of an unknown in the Virginia race against the top republican in Congress Eric Cantor-----running a grassroots campaign against a candidate with millions of dollars in his war chest shows elections do not have to be run on money.
Below you see the republicans in the Maryland governor's race having very little in their campaign bank----Lollar having almost nothing and that is said to be his own money. Yet, all these republicans were covered in the media and allowed access to all forums and debates. So, when WBAL states after receiving notice of the pending lawsuit challenging the election results for governor because of the censuring of democratic candidates that these democrats did not have the money to run a statewide race-----THEY ARE LYING. CINDY WALSH WAS LEFT OUT BECAUSE OF PLATFORM!
'Del. Ronald A. George (Anne Arundel) missed the filing deadline Tuesday night because of what his campaign said were technical problems. His campaign said he has about $40,000 cash on hand and had raised $69,000 since the end of the legislative session in April.
Charles County businessman Charles Lollar continues to run his campaign on a shoestring budget and had about $18,000 in the bank as of last week, according to his report. Lollar might not be allowed to spend that money, as a judge recently ruled that the campaign owes a political database software vendor in Northern Virginia more than $20,000'.
'Maryland has the 44th-worst-ranked set of campaign finance disclosure laws in the country, according to a UCLA study'.
In Md. governor's race, Baltimore no longer epicenter for campaign cash
By Aaron C. Davis and Luke Rosiak Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 30, 2010; 10:10 PM
Baltimore and its suburbs have for decades served as the epicenter of political fundraising in Maryland. Businesses atop the city's downtown high-rises, often with views of the shimmering Inner Harbor, and wealthy residents farther out in the tidy suburbs that ring the city's version of a beltway have most often opened their checkbooks for candidates running for governor.
Not this year. Down Interstate 95, across the twisty northern span of the Capital Beltway, and tucked in a cluster of gated mansions in Potomac is Maryland's new capital for money in politics.
Just outside the District line, Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) and former governor Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) have collected more money from Montgomery County's 20854 Zip code than from any other.
"It's mostly Democratic around here, as you can probably see," said John Sverha, a retired former hospital president, motioning late last week to O'Malley campaign signs in yards flanking his relatively modest brick home off Falls Road. "I guess I gave this year to Ehrlich out of principle. I'm expecting a tax hike if O'Malley is reelected."
Sverha's $50 check stands out as noticeably tiny in Potomac. Down the block, a neighbor wrote one to O'Malley for $500. Around the corner, another for $1,000. And thanks largely to donations from a few hundred who live in tree-lined estates with four- and six-car garages north of Congressional Golf Course, the total for Zip code 20854 last week stood at nearly $600,000.
The Washington suburbs' emergence as a fundraising powerhouse, however, has done little to shed light on the industry and business interests working most intently to influence the governor's race.
In fact, good-government advocates say, the shift has only highlighted how, because of weak state laws, much less is known about the way money influences politics in Maryland compared with national races next door in Washington.
For its progressive reputation in many other areas, Maryland has the 44th-worst-ranked set of campaign finance disclosure laws in the country, according to a UCLA study. Donors are shielded from having to disclose the names of their employers, what industries they work in and other basic data commonly required to contribute to federal campaigns.
"When all you can see is that John Jones from Baltimore or Jane Smith from Washington is giving $4,000 to Martin O'Malley, that doesn't mean much," said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies at UCLA. "But if you can see that John works for a company where a bunch of other people are giving money and he's a secretary - and how can he afford $4,000? - it raises a whole other set of questions."
Maryland's lack of disclosures makes it impossible to come up with a comprehensive portrait of the interests behind the majority of $26 million being spent to elect and curry favor with the next governor, but a Washington Post analysis identified the industries associated with 40 percent of the money contributed to the two men over the past eight years.
The donors' employers and industries were identified through federal records from the Center for Responsive Politics, information from the National Institute on Money in State Politics, and Post research.
The analysis found that many with related interests are giving more than the state's $4,000 cap for a single political campaign and its $10,000 cap in a four-year period. Some are donating through multiple family members or divisions of a company.
One real estate developer has given 14 donations through 11 different names totaling more than $28,000 to O'Malley since 2007. Five members of the family of Craftmark Homes' Kenneth Malm gave $2,000 each to Ehrlich in a single day in May.
The analysis also turned up more than 150 businesses, some involved in hot-button industries, that have hedged their bets by donating more than half a million dollars to both candidates.
Penn National Gaming, which last month opened Hollywood Casino Perryville, the state's first slots casino, gave $16,000 to O'Malley's campaign on a single day in August. Penn and its political action committee split contributions that day. Each gave two maximum contributions to two different O'Malley campaign accounts.
Gambling interests have given at least $143,000 to the men's campaigns, mostly to O'Malley, in the past two cycles.
Merritt Properties and its leader, Leroy Merritt, which in September unveiled plans for a nearly 40-acre office park for military contractors near the Aberdeen Proving Ground, has in the past two years donated $24,000 to Ehrlich and $6,000 to O'Malley.
Merritt gave 19 contributions totaling $57,000 through 15 entities, including at least 10 differently numbered limited liability corporations. He's given heavily to both candidates but has favored Ehrlich.
Swaths of donors connected to utility companies, health-care providers, defense contractors and construction industries also appear to be betting on O'Malley.
The governor has aggressively moved to implement the federal health-care overhaul approved by Congress, while Ehrlich has vowed to slow it down.
A slice of large donors who work for hospitals and nursing homes favored Ehrlich four years ago. This time they have given more than $120,000 to O'Malley and about $26,600 to Ehrlich.
Total donations from a similar slice of top contributors who work in construction amount to about half of what they were four years ago, near the peak of the housing bubble. The group has given more than $500,000 to O'Malley and $235,000 to Ehrlich. O'Malley's administration has overseen the spending of billions of dollars in federal stimulus money and increased funding for school construction.
Federally registered lobbyists have also given more than $63,500 to O'Malley and nearly $13,000 to Ehrlich.
Combined, the businesses banking on an O'Malley win go a long way to explaining the governor's multimillion-dollar fundraising advantage. As of early last week, O'Malley had raised nearly $12 million to Ehrlich's $7.2 million for the full four-year fundraising cycle. National groups have filled in an estimated $7 million in additional campaign spending, split roughly evenly on both campaigns.
But another criticized feature of Maryland's campaign finance laws means political contributions made in the final weeks before an election are not revealed until weeks later. Nothing is known, for example, about the sources of $800,000 raised in a single day this month for O'Malley at fundraisers headlined by former president Bill Clinton and Vice President Biden.
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You cannot raise contributions if your name and message is nowhere to be seen in the major venues. As citizens we have the right to run for office and we have the right to go to the polls intelligent of all of the election platforms and candidates. In Maryland there is not one venue the state or local government sponsors in educating the voters on any race. The public universities were the hotbed of politics and political discussion and that is where the hostility against my candidacy was most harsh. It is because of the corporatization of these campuses. When you leave the public in the hands of media for most election education and then you allow those institutions to tell the citizens of Maryland----IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE CANDIDATES WE PUT IN FRONT OF YOU THEN DON'T VOTE----you do not have an election system.
Below you see how little was needed to defeat what everyone in America wants to defeat whether republican or democrat-----crony capitalism ----neo-coservatism and neo-liberalism.
The Tea Party is the political opposite of labor and justice but they are working hard to get rid of global corporate control and protect the US Constitution as progressive labor and justice.
Dave Versus Goliath, By the Numbers
by Russ Choma on June 11, 2014
Dave Brat is congratulated last night after defeating House Majority Leader Eric Cantor. (AP Photo/Richmond Times-Dispatch, P. Kevin Morley)
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s campaign spent more money on food — $168,000 on steakhouses alone — than Dave Brat did on his entire campaign. But it wasn’t just steak. On April 6, the Cantor campaign spent $790 at Proof, a downtown D.C. restaurant, where the cheapest entree on the menu is a “Napoleon of Crispy Tofu, Wild Mushrooms & Spring Vegetables,” which costs $25. Brat’s biggest food expense was $789 for catering from Honey Baked Ham in Richmond (where boxed lunches go for $8.29 apiece) on May 8.
Cantor has been widely admired — inside the Beltway — for his successful fundraising operation and his largesse in donating to other candidates, especially from his leadership PAC, Every Republican Is Crucial (ERIC PAC). But last night, Cantor’s brand turned from ERIC to epic — as in, failure of historic proportions. Since 2000, there have been 30 instances of incumbents losing to primary challengers, but there is no comparison in terms of the chasm in spending between the winner and loser. According to an OpenSecrets.org analysis, Cantor spent more than Brat by a ratio of almost 41-to-1, a margin that is close to ten times wider than the spending spread between contestants in any other race on the list of 30.
Brat’s rhetoric railed against big-money Washington, decrying lobbyists and Wall Street types who funnel cash to leaders in both parties. And despite his severe financial disadvantage, it’s apparent that he managed to tap into a public anger that isn’t much affected by campaign ads or sophisticated strategizing.
A look at each campaign’s spending in late March helps tell the tale. On March 25, Cantor wrote checks for $8,900 for private jet services, $6,700 for food for a fundraising event (the Washington, D.C. catering company’s website is currently touting its “Star Spangled & Sumptuous” menu, featuring chilled roasted salmon with cucumber banchan) and $1,017 for legal consulting from McGuire Woods. Brat’s campaign had no expenses on March 25, but the day before, it spent $87 at WalMart on “office supplies.”
While Cantor’s campaign was once admired in Washington for its high-flying ways and is now being mocked for its lavish food expenses, Brat’s campaign spending was so minimal that it’s hard to detect a pattern. His largest vendor was a payroll firm ($29,700), followed by Concentric Direct ($25,300), a small political consulting firm that, according to its website, had previously overseen Mitt Romney’s primary win in Wyoming and also had success in Cleveland city council races.
One of the more seasoned political operatives working for Brat was his direct mail consultant, Dennis Fusaro, a longtime Virginia conservative activist who recently blew the whistle on what he said were illegal campaign activities at the National Right To Work Committee. Fusaro was paid $500 by Brat’s campaign; he told OpenSecrets Blog that he and a handful of others ran a shoestring operation, mailing out 40,000 introduction letters. Fusaro added that he helped coordinate another 12,000 phone calls to gun owners. According to Brat’s filings, about $21,000 was spent printing mailers and making robocalls.
Similarly, it was already widely known that Cantor’s biggest donor was Wall Street. And though his fundraising numbers — $5.4 million so far in this election cycle — had been the envy of congressional colleagues, they are now the symbol of how out-of-touch he was. Conversely, it’s almost impossible to profile Brat’s typical donor, because he had so few.
Other gleanings from the campaigns’ reports:
- Brat raised $206,000 through May 21, and at least an additional $16,600 after that, while Cantor raised $5.1 million, and another $298,000 just since May 21.
- The majority leader brought in $2.1 million from PACs. Not a single PAC gave to Brat’s effort.
- Cantor had hundreds of donors who maxed out their donations to him — $2,600 for the primary race — while Brat had 12 donors who gave the maximum amount, one of whom is a family member.
- Cantor received just 21 percent of his campaign cash from Virginia residents, according to OpenSecrets’ latest analysis, which covers large individual donations (over $200) from 2013. Brat didn’t even raise money in 2013, but in 2014, 81 percent of the money from his large individual donors came from Virginia residents.
- Cantor raised at least as much from donors living in D.C. ($193,000 in 2013 alone) as Brat raised overall. The challenger received just $50 from the District.
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