Although Allentown Mayor Edwin Pawlowski has insisted his campaign finance reports are "totally transparent," Lehigh County Voting Registrar Stacy Sterner seems to have a different view. In response to a complaint I made with her office on Monday, Pawlowski has been told to amend his December 3 campaign finance report. He has agreed to do so.As with any campaign finance report, Pawlowski must list his expenditures, indicating the persons paid, their addresses, the dates and amounts. Pawlowski does list an $8,000 payment, on election day, to "misc. canvassers for election day." But he fails to identify the persons paid or where they live. He describes this expense as "money to pay election day canvassers & workers."
That's a lot of loose change to be carrying around on election day.
When I wrote about this last week, I mentioned that the whole point of campaign finance reporting is to enable us, the public, to follow the money. By withholding the identity of persons paid on election day, Pawlowski effectively defeated the public's right to follow the money. Sterner agrees, and a more specific report must be filed.
This will mark the third time that Pawlowski has been caught afoul of campaign finance reporting laws, and the third time I've dimed him. In 2007, Hizzoner actually attempted to get away with using campaign funds to pay a $270 fine for a late report. Sterner ordered him to pay the fine out of his own pocket. In 2008, he was even more deceptive. He filed a bogus report, falsely claiming his coffers were empty, when he actually raised $101,599. He was ordered to amend that report, too.
If his campaign finance report are transparent, I'm the thin man.
25 comments:
What about the pol's we know paid people under the table or through third parties. Aren't they more dishonest for hiding the entire deal.
Crooked is as crooked does.
Doesn't this issue come up all the time with Allentown's mayor?
Why? Isn't he a bit embarrassed?
Way to go Special Ed.
What scares me is that some blogger from Nazareth is doing the enforcement! Shouldn't these reports be scrutinized by someone in a formal capacity. Imagine the abuses that guys like Pawlowski could get away with. Maybe Ed collects all this pay to play money from his business card collection and just pays himself $8,000 to go door to door. Nice job of spotting even more corrupt political tricks by King Ed
Thanks. What bothers me is that $8,000 is a lot of loose change to be throwing around in a municipal race on election day. The bag man could have pocketed a chunk of this change, or it may have been used to help "persuade" someone to vote for Pawlowski. We don't know any of this unless we know who got the money, their addresses, and how much. If he has paid "volunteers", where are they from? Are they local, or were they shipped in by SEIU and ACORN?
expect alot of this money to go unaccounted for. If they paid each canvasser $100, that would be 80 people. I seriously doubt they collected all the names/addresses and such for all of them. this happens often with campaigns where canvassers get paid in cash when they are done.
I remember when I had to get 50 people for an election day operation and pay them $50 a piece for 3 hours of work. The list given to me at the beginning of the day was different from the people who showed. I managed to get the names of everybody (no ID, no pay is what I told them). But that was 50 people. With $8k on the street, there had to be holes in that list.
Geoff
Geoff, So you were once a bag man? I thought that practice ended long ago. Did you pay cash or by check?
I am really concerned by the prospect of $8,000 in loose change floating around on election day.
I would need more than $ 8,000 to vote for King Ed.
Allentown Registered Democrat
I guess this is the good old USA and you can pluck people off the street and say deliver this and it ain't Dominoes pizza. This is exactly why I left Allentown,after being mugged,while I was attempting to move my vehicle before the "Traffic Patrol" tagged my car. Great revenue stream.
Hey,where can I pick up an extra hundred or so. In this day and age it takes a blogger from Nazareth to do a little investigating about dirt deeds done dirt cheap. Way to go Bernie you are on point! And I didn't know ballet was another one of your many talents. Ho.Ho,HO
not sure of the term bagman, but when I was a field coordinator for a state senate campaign (10 years ago?), I was asked to recruit 50 (all college students) people for a 3 hour shift. They would be paid $50 in cash. My job was to get their name, verify who they said they were (check ID), give them a street list of 25-30 super-voters and then follow them around as they knocked on doors. All the people signed a paper that confirmed they knew they were responsible for taxes, etc (we weren't b/c we were well under the IRS requirements for independant contractors) and that they would only be paid if they completed the full term of their shift (we had 4 team leaders to monitor). After the shift, they presented us their license again and we paid them $50 cash.
The campaign reports did lineitem each person who was paid. It was a terrible process, but we documented that they were paid and reported it to the state as part of post-election report.
For the record, I was never compensated by that campaign, either on election day, before or after. I volunteered my time to the campaign to learn some of the basics. What I learned was enough to get me to stay away from campaigns. I also learned that just about every campaign finance report has some kind of hole in it if you are willing to pick it apart, so your identifying this particular example isn't surprising. Frankly, I'd be stunned if more campaigns in the area haven't done the same thing.
"not sure of the term bagman, but when I was a field coordinator for a state senate campaign"
Yep. That's the word used.
Your story, unfortunately, is way too tame, completely unlike the ones I've heard from guys who were doing it thirty years ago, when pollworkers sometimes would collect from both sides and loyalty usually went to the highest bidder. Also, the bagman usually tried to kep as much of the money as he could for himself.
40% of Obama's money can't be accounted for. No complaints from anybody. It's the Chicago way and 80% of A-town voters likely have no problem with whatever means were used to get the D elected. There's really no difference between the two Chicagoans except for scale. What's $8K?
"Your story, unfortunately, is way too tame, completely unlike the ones I've heard from guys who were doing it thirty years ago, when pollworkers sometimes would collect from both sides and loyalty usually went to the highest bidder. Also, the bagman usually tried to kep as much of the money as he could for himself."
Nah, the people I recruited were partisans. 1/2 of them might have done 3 hours of work without pay, but they were poor college students so the campaign agreed with my assertion. It made getting the other 1/2 of them to do it. Sorry that I didn't give you enough scandal Bernie. I'll try harder next time.
Geoff
Years ago a group filed suit regarding the election in the Northampton School District. The judge at the time ruled that the amounts of money in question were to low to bother with. My question is: What if I robbed a bank and got caught. What amount of money that I stole will the judge see as to low to bother with and throw out my case.
Breaking the law is breaking the law.
I am vaguely familiar w/ that situation, which involved the antics of Ted Fritz. Among other things, I believe he used a printer owned by the school district to prepare his flyers. The Court did not say the amount of money was too low, but that the actions were "de minimis" even if the violated campaign finance laws. In that case, there was an accounting action, and of course, nobody could prove anything. I think, in hindsight, that the use of school resources to influence a school board election, is criminal. Nothing de minimis there. Amazing how John Morganelli tolerated this obvious theft while he now sues to keep Angle off a school board. If he were so interested in the integrity and make up of school boards, why didn't he look at Fritz? Was it because Fritz is a connected Democrat?
Interesting points you raise.
Another cheap shot at Mr. Morganelli. Angle is a crooked law breaker who should be prosecuted. Thank God there is a DA not afraid of this thief.
Angle helped Stoffa get on the Northampton School Board as part of their plan to get him to the County Executive position. Once appointed Mr. Stoffa promptly voted for a school tax increase.
Cuckoo. Crazy Bob Daday is of his meds asusual.
Dady,
You're not only a liar, you're boring.
Give it up.
This may be a personal attack, but it's true.
This would be an interesting post if I knew anyone that still lived in Allentown.
Ohare is back on the sauce(we don't think he was ever off). This Dady thing is all in his head. Mr. Dady isn't even in the state anymmore, hasn't been for months. Someone has hacked a wireless modem and is having a blast with Ohare. To quote Ohare, "cucko". By the way Mr. Dady has been informed and given transcripts of your statments about him.
Really, this is to funny.
Take your meds, Daday. There is only one person I know goofy enough to make the insane remarks you habitually post here. You embarrass your family and we have known for a year that it is you. You must really be pissed about Stoffa cutting off your unemployment.
Deb Depaul was going to force Stoffa to disclose his "inkind corps" but he attacked her credibility with a campaign supporter packed "committee" designed to stop her and successfully drove her out of office before the investigation could begin.
What a whacko. Even at Christmans, you iie. The Cunty Exec has no authority to fire the voting registrar.
Ah, something we can agree on Bernie!
R or D this kind of BS must be exposed and stopped. Keep up the good work and if you find an R who does it (which probably won't be hard) I would praise that as well.
Unless we change the "normal" politics, we will all suffer.
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