WCRC meeting – February 2008

It was back to a more normal meeting this month for our group, but we still had over 30 people come out to find out what was going on within the local Republican Party and hear from our speaker, the Director of the Campaign Finance Division of our State Board of Elections, Jared DeMarinis.

Of course, we did do the usual business of reciting the Lord’s Prayer, Pledge of Allegiance, hearing the minutes from January’s meeting (mercifully kept sort of brief regarding the guest speaker), and our treasurer’s report. Then we heard from our Annapolis-based guest. And while he was one of the attorneys who successfully convinced the New Jersey Supreme Court to severely bend election laws and allow state Democrats to place onetime Senator Frank Lautenburg on the ballot to replace the scandal-plagued Robert Torricelli in 2002, I’ll not hold that against him for this report.

The key part of his remarks was to explain what our club could and could not do for candidates at the state and federal level, along with the differences between our situation and a political action committee. While we don’t have a PAC, some other clubs do and they have to be carefully divided financially. Of particular interest to us was the aspect of campaign coordination because among our members are a number of local elected officials and the possibilty of conflict of interest does exist. We also were made aware of the financial limits our club was placed under for candidate support during any four-year cycle, including the one we’re in now that extends through the end of 2010.

However there were a couple interesting loopholes that could be exploited in the area of issue-based ads, ads that could even feature a candidate’s name and positions on particular issues. For example, if we placed an ad that said candidate A would be a tax cutter if elected while candidate B wouldn’t be, that would likely pass muster unless we specifically asked people to vote for or elect candidate A. (I actually had names typed in but decided it best to omit them. You can probably figure who’s who in the Congressional race.) These ads would not apply to our club’s four-year cycle limits. However, DeMarinis was referring to state laws specifically – the federal laws are much more thorny and the registration limit for financial contributions quite low. I also found it noteworthy that the state board looks at 527’s “with a suspicious eye” because they seem to be the vehicle of choice in federal election financing.

Of course, I asked the question about websites like this one, where I openly advocate for candidates. Fortunately for me, they haven’t gotten around to being very restrictive on what I say (nor should they ever be) and because I make it clear that the website is my own opinion and not that of the Central Committee as a whole, I’m well within the law.

Another query I had was about the time when I seek re-election. Longtime readers will recall I had my authority statement online when my campaign for the office I hold was active. I also had to claim a portion of my server fee as an in-kind contribution to myself because I used this website in my campaign to a small extent. One change in the interim has been made where a campaign committee is considered to be a continuing committee for all offices, so when I run for re-election I would have to maintain the committee until I filed the paperwork to dissolve it. In 2006 I filed my paperwork as a non-continuing one, now it’s no longer possible to do so.

Overall, it was an interesting topic to delve into and prepare us for upcoming elections.

We also heard as usual from Central Committee head Dr. John Bartkovich, who noted that the Lincoln Day dinner was a success and recognized again our Republicans of the Year, both of whom were in attendance tonight. He also put out a call for unity now that the primary is behind us and announced we’ll have a booth at the Delmarva Chicken Festival here in Salisbury in June.

Other announcements were made about the club’s Crab Feast now on the schedule for September 20th and needing help at the club’s Salisbury Festival food booth in late April. Also, the Lower Shore YR’s meet this Thursday, 7 p.m. at the Backstreet Grill here in Salisbury (formerly Pesto’s. I’ll see you there.)

I have one more announcement from the proceedings tonight in my next post, shortly.

Author: Michael

It's me from my laptop computer.