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FEC complaint filed against Blackburn
Thursday, June 12, 2008 at 1:19am
U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn is facing a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission. Matthew Williams/File/The City Paper
A Washington, D.C.-based good government group filed a complaint Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission alleging Congressman Marsha Blackburn’s campaign and her treasurer violated federal campaign finance law.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) said Blackburn (R-Brentwood) violated campaign finance law through failing to report more than $100,000 in contributions and about $286,000 in spending dating back to 2002.
“Given the Blackburn campaign committee’s longstanding pattern of filing inaccurate FEC reports and the large amounts of money involved, the FEC should step in, investigate the committee and sanction it appropriately,” said Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director, in a statement.
In response to the complaint, the Blackburn campaign issued a written statement saying, “all funds were properly raised and properly spent.”
"Rep. Blackburn, in holding her campaign to a strict ethical standard, self-initiated a reconciliation of her campaign accounts,” campaign spokeswoman Darcy Anderson said in a statement. “The reconciliation confirmed that all funds were properly raised and properly spent. She is confident that FEC review of those records will agree with this assessment.
“In regards to the merit-less complaint filed by the liberal partisan group CREW, Rep. Blackburn is not surprised and unimpressed. This is an election year and conservative women are prime targets for Democrat attack.”
In addition, CREW alleges that Blackburn’s campaign “may have committed perjury” from signing a statement testifying that information on a campaign disclosure was accurate when it did not contain a $1,000 contribution from “Friends of Duke Cunningham.”
Cunningham, a former Republican Congressman from California, is currently in jail for accepting bribes to steer government contracts toward defense contractors and others.
Blackburn’s Anderson confirmed that Blackburn received the contribution from Cunningham in 2004 but said the campaign donated it to a charity that benefits the 101st Airborne in 2006 after the news broke on Cunningham.
Alexander called that the “right thing and the standard thing to do.”
Blackburn is facing Republican primary opposition from Tom Leatherwood, a former state senator and current Shelby County Register of Deeds.
Leatherwood has made Blackburn’s campaign finance dealings a central focus of his primary challenge, routinely criticizing what he now says is more than $400,000 that she has “funneled” to her daughter, son-in-law or their political consulting firm.
Blackburn’s campaign says the funds were used to pay for campaign services.
Leatherwood said Blackburn has been given “more credit than she’s due” for self-reporting the campaign finance discrepancies.
“What really disturbs me about all of this and one of the reasons I got into the race was just this pattern of mismanagement of funds, this pattern of self-service,” Leatherwood told The City Paper Wednesday. “And that’s what continues to disturb me about her now. She’s just become a part of that self-serving culture in D.C. rather than being the public servant we sent her up there to be.”
A Germantown, Tenn., resident filed the complaint along with CREW.
The FEC received the complaint, said spokeswoman Michelle Ryan, who could not offer any additional details on when it might be taken up.
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Filed under: City News
Maybe Marsha can go join Duke Cunningham for 11 months and 29 days.
To conservatives, any good government group is "liberal".And what exactly is a "self-initiated reconciliation"?
Blackburn's campaign found the discrepancy, reported the discrepancy to the FEC, and reconciled the discrepancy with the FEC.I looks like this complaint is politically motivated.
Six years seems like a long time to go without balancing ones checkbook. But, I am not a politician, so maybe that is the normal time frame to report contributions and spending. (NOT!)
Ya think Dragon?wake up
There's more substance to this than there was to Hillary's Arkansas land deal, which Republicans gleefully flogged until the corpse was moldering.
Melanie Sloan, founded the organization in 2003. Sloan is a former United States Attorney and has served as an aide to Representative John Conyers and Senator Charles Schumer, both Democrats. She currently serves on the legal team of Valerie Plame,helping her sue Vice President Dick Cheney, Dick Armitage, Scooter Libby and Karl Rove. Of the 20 who make her list of the most disreputable, 16 are Republicans. At least she she did not try to cover up for John Murtha and William Jefferson. I guess the fact that the "MMM" actually wrote about those 2 means she can't get away with not including them. I am sure most of the liberals here will say that the reason she goes after Republicans is because they are the ones who are corrupt, but please, to not mention people like Reid, Clinton, Kennedy and their ilk in a compilation of disreputable politicians defies belief.No chance this gal is partisan, is there!???
LOL, politics as usual.
Of course no one here is saying that Marsha has done nothing wrong, just that there are others that do it too. Guess that makes it a-ok!
lou do you really think she fills that stuff out herself?Looks like the left is worried about her running for another office. I would like to see her run for Governor. Frist would be hard to swallow.If she ran against Alexander or Corker she would have my vote too.
Oh, I thought the “buck” stopped with her, given that she is the elected official. How silly of me to think that she had time to worry about her business, and how she got there. Yeah, she would be great in another office, just like every other politician it would seem.
No wonder she and her fellow Republicans can't balance the budget -- she can't even balance her checkbook. And we wonder why the ecomony is in such bad shape with these yahoos at the wheel?
Like the tax and spend dems are any better.
I wonder how much of that was spent on hair and make-up?
The Tennessean article states there was documentation about the Cunningham donation being turned over. As for this whole mess, it's just the Democratic leadership attacking another woman. At least this time they had the decency to not turn on their own. Democratic party = misogyny.
This is how you stay on government welfare..you cheat.
For someone who constantly harps about fiscal responsibility and managing the country's budget, it is hard to believe that you conservatives would defend this woman and her incredibly poor example of bookkeeping. As to the charge that she doesn't actually 'fill that stuff out herself', you are right, she has her daughter do it for her. I should think if you were paying your daughter and her hubby $1000's of dollars to manage the books that they could at least get it right once in 6 or 7 years.
Too bad politics has to be so partisan. Not gonna change. I agree with her politically so she has my support.
Is bush a Democrat?He wants to tax the little guy and spend a LOT more than is being brought in.Always funny how each side blames the other for spending too much.
Oh Marsha Marsha Marsha! Is the best you can do "all funds were properly raised and properly spent"? I take care of my kids too, just not with campaign contributions. JDG, remember Ken 'Closet Case' Starr? Now THERE was an impartial arbiter of guilt! Corruption is nothing new on either side of the aisle. But it is curious that so many Republican lawmakers use ethically bankrupt means to fill their pockets. Not to mention all those hypocrites looking for love in all the wrong places, for example the Staten Island Congressman with two families caught when he was issued a DUI and the guy from Florida you wouldn't want as your son's Scoutmaster.Marsha is a lightweight partisan extremist who wants to be famous. But I don't think this is the avenue she wanted to take to fame.
You agree with her sloppy book keeping, her explanations, and her business prowess, so you will over look her political views and continue to support her. THAT is what you meant to say!
Blackburn just needs to go. Period. She's just a mouthpiece. Never has an original thought. She was a total joke in the state house and even more so in the US house.Wonder if she still consults Steve Gill every day as to how she should think and talk.Almost all politicians are crooks. Party doesn't matter.Only office she's qualified to run for is dog catcher and that's questionable.If you want to see this state go to hell, elect her as governor. She'd make Sundquist look good.
It's too much of a coincidence to me that the woman who filed the report lives where Leatherwood has most of his support. It appears that Ms. Ginsberg has her own agenda and it's not for campaign finance reform. How ethical is this tactic?
Good thing Mr Leatherwood has all his cronies looking out for him in Shelby county.What is this liberal organization got to to with a 'conservative' guy running for a republican nomination?
Dragon, JDG, & Grass, the motivation is irrelevant. Don’t shoot the messenger. Pay attention to the message. If C.R.E.W.’s allegations are accurate, then Marsha Blackburn ought to be punished. This story is decent reporting of what everyone SAID. Now, I would like John Rodgers to investigate the facts of the case. What can he discover? If Blackburn simply turned Duke Cunningham’s check over to a charity, then why was there no record of receipt AND no record of the donation? Could Rodgers trace the money spread among Blackburn, her children, & their “political consulting firm”? Is the “firm” legit or does it simply work to serve Blackburn?I note that those Blackburnites have two failings with their remarks: (1) They say nothing good about Blackburn, and (2) They call these allegations politically motivated by a “liberal” organization although they will help a very regressive primary opponent. Well, which is it?Caholt makes excellent points. We expect fiscal responsibility & accountability of our elected officials. It appears that Blackburn hasn’t met that standard.Rocket, you state my opinion of Blackburn almost exactly. She is one of the reasons that I am embarrassed to live in Tennessee just as Charles Strobel is one of the reasons that I am proud & pleased to live in Tennessee.Further relevant at this point is whether the voters of the 7th district want a friend of Duke Cunningham representing them. I sure wouldn’t.
Yeah, Sara, the party that supported the Equal Rights Amendment, the party that supports a woman's individual freedom, the party that voted very strongly for a female candidate for president, the party that--TWENTY-FOUR YEARS AGO--nominated a woman for vice-president, the party that has elected a woman Speaker of the House, the party that first appointed a woman as Secretary of State, the highest possible cabinet post, the party that first appointed a woman to ANY cabinet post--yeah, Sara, THAT party is misogynistic.It seems appropriate that you've named yourself Sarabellum since you certainly don't use your cerebrum when posting your remarks.
MJB, it's interesting that you say not to shoot the messanger when Marsha was the original messanger, not C.R.E.W. They've taken the information provided by Marsha when she uncovered the mistake from a self imposed audit and are using the fact that she was truthful about errors in her campaign finances against her. I haven't heard or read anything that shows where she tried to hide the errors once she discovered them. If she really is as crooked as you claim she is, wouldn't she have tried to hide the discrepancies until AFTER the election? Not voluntarily disclosed them before? Who's using their "cerebrum" now when they post remarks?
Grass, your account is not exactly the whole truth. C.R.E.W. is pointing out that Marsha Blackburn has a pattern of filing inaccurate F.E.C. reports and that she is inaccurate about reporting large amounts of money—like a quarter of a million dollars. Please read more closely. I wrote, “If C.R.E.W.’s allegations are accurate, then Marsha Blackburn ought to be punished”. You can hardly defend Blackburn by claiming that she has been incompetent 7 possibly crooked but she’s less so now. Now, NOTE: I am NOT saying that Blackburn IS crooked or incompetent, simply that your defense of her, that she could have been even worse, is hardly a defense. Do we pardon the thief who eventually turns himself in & says, “Hey, at least I stopped at robbing only FIVE banks. I didn’t rob TEN!”? No, we still try; we still investigate.C.R.E.W. has taken the appropriate steps & filed a complaint w/ the F.E.C. You can hardly object to that. If the F.E.C. finds no basis to C.R.E.W.’s complaint—as you imply—, then Blackburn will look even better.Again, I must point out that none of you Blackburnites has been able to say anything good about Blackburn, and that you cannot come up with a rationale for a so-called “liberal” organization, C.R.E.W., helping a very regressive primary opponent. I would love to read responses to each of these points.(By the way, “messenger” is spelled w/ an “e” in the middle, not an “a”, but your spelling is a wonderful Freudian slip.)