Fedele Makes It to $250k and the Honeypot.
The Fedele-Boughton team has qualified for public financing of their campaign, according to sources. Lieutenant Governor Fedele will be able to start skirmishing with frontrunner Tom Foley on airwaves in their battle for the Republican nomination for governor.
Fedele will also qualify for the rich man’s bonus based on Foley’s spending on his won campaign. That’ll be a lot of money to spend in 6 weeks on the 125,000 Republicans likely to turnout in the August 10th primary.
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Kevin, there is no “Fedele-Boughton team” with respect to the taxpayer financed campaign program. They both have separate candidate committees and they cannot co-mingle their funds or contribute to one another until after the primary.
Ken Dixon beat you to the punch regarding the Fedele rumor but no one has said one word as to how close Boughton is to his $75,000.00 threshold.
Ed, the fundraising quarter is up today, so we’ll all know where they stand shortly!
Well grackle, even though the quarter was up yesterday, the reports aren’t due until the 12th.
BUT WAIT, Fedele filed his grant application today however it shows that he’s only raised 239K and the threshold is 25oK. It also shows he has 9K cash on hand.
Even though his grant application report was filed none of us know where he really stands.
Apparently he’s “pooling” funds with Boughton… not sure if this violates the letter of the law with regard to the CEP program, but it would certainly seem to violate the spirit.
Here’s a recent advisory opinion from the state’s election agency that addresses joint committees. It appears to be the path Fedele took. He wasn’t going to get to $250,000 on his own.
Kevin, that’s an “advisory opinion” that isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Go look at the law 9-709. Only party endorsed candidates for Governor and LG can team up. Let’s all look at the pertinent part of 9-709(a) together:
“The party-endorsed candidate for nomination or election to the office of Lieutenant Governor and the party-endorsed candidate for nomination or election to the office of Governor shall be deemed to be aiding or promoting the success of both candidates jointly upon the earliest of the following: (1) The primary, whether held for the office of Governor, the office of Lieutenant Governor, or both; (2) if no primary is held for the office of Governor or Lieutenant Governor, the fourteenth day following the close of the convention; or (3) a declaration by the party-endorsed candidates that they will campaign jointly. Any other candidate for nomination or election to the office of Lieutenant Governor shall be deemed to be aiding or promoting the success of such candidacy for the office of Lieutenant Governor and the success of a candidate for nomination or election to the office of Governor jointly upon a declaration by the candidates that they shall campaign jointly.”
The LAW is crystal clear here “earliest of the following” for three scenarios:
(1) After the primary (not applicable here since they’re attempting to team up before the primary)
(2) If no primary… (does not apply in this case)
(3) a declaration by the PARTY ENDORSED CANDIDATES…
That means we look at (3 ) where you find the words “party endorsed candidates” that makes this non applicable to Fedele and Boughton because Fedele is not party endorsed. Okay, you have the “Any other candidate “ words in the next sentence which also doesn’t apply here because Boughton isn’t just “any other candidate” like challenger Lisa Wilson-Foley, Boughton is PARTY ENDORSED which means this part of the statute does not apply in this case. Therefore, Fedele and Boughton cannot team up under any of the three scenarios allowed in 9-709(a).
The advisory opinion (which is NOT a law or a regulation and is again therefore meaningless) rewords the law into something it DOES NOT say and gives the reader the impression that a non-party endorsed candidate for Governor and a party endorsed candidate for Lt. Gov can team up which as I said is NOT what the law says. This is the typical modus operandi for the SEEC, if they don’t like what they law says, they make up their own version (either an advisory opinion, and declaratory ruling or whatever) and truly believe they have the power to do that under the law but they absolutely, positively do not.
Fedele and Boughton knew this and were both raising money separately and both missed their thresholds by a considerable margin. Fedele needed 250K and only wound up with 229K. Boughton needed 75K and only wound up with 45K.
Now these two seem to think that 229 + 45 = 274 which is greater than the 250 that Fedele needs. As we discussed earlier, sorry guys, it doesn’t work that way. My worry is that the SEEC will try and pull their “Advisory Opinion” out of their backsides so Foley should file a complaint immediately before they hand millions of taxpayer dollars to Fedele ILLEGALLY because there is no basis in law that allows Fedele to get his millions in public funds unless he raises 250K ON HIS OWN which he didn’t do.
This little charade by Fedele and Boughton is quite the stunt but I think that even they both know it won’t work.
The real question is why couldn’t Fedele raise his 250K to begin with? He had PLENTY of time and missed the mark by almost 10%.
C’mon Kevin, you’re a lawyer so I know you understand the law and I know you have no love for the SEEC.
Will you do the right thing and agree with me or are you so much in the tank for Fedele that you’ll stoop so low and side with the SEEC’s illegal “Advisory Opinion” just so your boy can get his millions in public money to fund his losing primary campaign against Tom Foley?
Another thing to think about how wrong this whole fiasco is:
Look at Boughton’s contributors then look at Fedele’s contributors, MOST OF THEM ARE THE SAME PEOPLE.
So here’s basically what happened, Fedele had maxed out his donors at $100.00 SO he tells them to contribute to Boughton. This is double-dipping plain and simple. It’s Fedele’s way around the $100.00 max per person. By telling them to give to Boughton, then add Boughton’s money to his to reach the 250K level, that means each person who gave to both candidate committees now has contributed TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS to Fedele!
If the SEEC allows this and give Fedele his millions in taxpayer dollars when he essentially gamed the system, there is something seriously wrong because Fedele obviously does not have enough of a base of support to run for Governor under the CEP program since he doesn’t have enough uniquely different contributors to his campaign. The rules are for Governor, you need to raise 250K total, 225K has to come from inside the state and the maximum contribution is $100.00 per person. Oh and Commissioners like Brenda Sisco & Jerry Farrell who gave $100.00 to Fedele then another $100.00 to Boughton are in huge trouble because 9-612(j)(2)(A) limits these people to “one hundred dollars for each such campaign”
Not only does this “violate the spirit” of the CEP as fuzzy said, it’s a blatant violation of the law. The SEEC absolutely has to disqualify all those double dippers and if they do that then Fedele doesn’t have anywhere near the 250K and probably not the mandatory 225K “in-state” contributions either.
Absolutely incredible.
Ed, I would hardly call Kevin “in the tank” for Fedele (see e.g. Kevin’s blog posts regarding Mike’s “phantom” endorsements).
This claim that he reached the threshold seems extremely sketchy. At a minimum, the double dipped contributors should only be counted once.
The stakes have also been raised for Mark Boughton. If Tom Foley somehow manages to win the governor’s office, it’s going to be a looooooooongggggg four years for him.
Fuzzy, you’re assuming Boughton will defeat Lisa Wilson-Foley in the primary. What makes you so sure that will happen? I’m completely unimpressed with Boughton and I know that he’s not exactly loved by quite a few of the local Republicans in his own town of Danbury never mind everywhere else.
Lisa Wilson-Foley has gone out of her way to track me down and speak to me on at least two separate occasions regarding her campaign for LG. Boughton hasn’t made an attempt to EVER contact me when he was running for Governor or when he dropped out of that race and got in the LG’s race. She’s definitely working a lot harder for this and doesn’t have the baggage and the aloofness that Boughton has.
Ed-
You are such Tom Foley fool. Lisa Wilson Foley is a half wit who spent her time supporting Chris Murphy (5000.00) and John Larson (5000.00) in their last elections. She also is a vocal supporter of Obama-Care (jeez conflict anyone? Her husband owns a bunch of nursing homes). And just became a Republican (RINO anyone). Yeah a Foley-Foley ticket? Losers.
Boughton has actually been elected to an office (5 times) and just was reelected by 67% of the vote.
I was at the event with Dick Morris in Danbury and Boughton got a standing ovation from the Danbury Republicans.
Bottom line is that your boy Foley and the RINO Foley, spell disaster in the fall for Republicans. Did you read Foley’s longwinded statement about not beating his wife? Are you kidding? He acts guilty.
I am one Republican who is glad Boughton never contacted you, based on your ramblings on this blog, I wouldn’t call you either..
EdM, I guess the trick would be to determine if there are enough “double” donors to bring the total to under $250,000.
Jimbo, what do you think about Oz Grebal and Linda McMahon? Just wondering seeing as how you’re critical of Lisa Wilson-Foley giving money to Democrats. And no Jimbo, Tom Foley never beat his wife, no matter how much you wish he did.
If Boughton is such a great guy an’ all then how many of his donors did he get to help out his new running mate Mike Fedele? I’ll help you out, the answer to that question is NONE. I know quite a few Danbury Republicans who think Boughton is a slime ball who cannot be trusted. I don’t know much about him myself but I’ll take the word of those who do.
grackle, I believe the double donors matter but unfortunately, the SEEC doesn’t seem to think so. One would think that even if the law did allow Fedele and Boughton to team up, it would only follow that Fedele would still have to raise his 250K AND Boughton would have to raise his 75K but that concept seems to be thrown out the window as well. The SEEC sure seems hell bent on bending the law to the breaking point in order to prove their supposed “clean elections” fiasco is so wonderful. They have a whole lot riding on this including all those jobs they added in that agency (where they quadrupled the size of the agency) when the taxpayer financing of campaigns was passed.
Once again, the law only allows the party endorsed candidates to “team” up and since Fedele isn’t party endorsed, Boughton can’t team up with him and allow Fedele to have a few hundred of his donors essentially give to him twice.
What I think would be comical would be if Foley and Lamont who are NOT participating in the taxpayer funded boondoggle both win their party’s nominations. At least that would save the citizens of Connecticut money because if a taxpayer funded candidate wins the primary they get MORE taxpayer money for their campaigns. The ones who received the biggest windfall from campaign spending aren’t the lawn sign companies or the bumper sticker printers, it’s the high paid OUT OF STATE political consultants.
Not only that, the US 2nd Circuit has already determined that Connecticut’s taxpayer funded political campaign system is unconstitutional. How on earth the SEEC is still allowed to administer this program in the wake of that decision is completely beyond me.
Getting back to Fedele, it’s pretty amazing that he raised almost all of his money from only TWO towns in Connecticut, Greenwich and Stamford and even with that, doesn’t have the ability to raise the bare minimum (250K total, 225K from in-state) required to get the public money.
Ed – only you and your fellow staffers read this crap – your posts are the blogging equivalent of War and Peace (in length, not literary quality). Get a life, because if this is what you’ve got going on, it’s pretty sad.
I’m not a “staffer” citation, you’re an idiot. Unlike Doug Hageman, I’m not being paid by any political campaigns.
Fedele and Boughton do not qualify under 9-709(a) to campaign jointly. It’s unfortunate that you’re too stupid to grasp that and are someone who needs to “get a life” because you’re obviously jealous of someone who knows more about election law than you do. No need to attack people just because you’re ignorant.
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