Scott Alexander has a serious campaign finance situation to explain. His special election campaign for the 30th District State Senate seat in eastern Kentucky (the Special Election was held on February 5, 2008) didn’t itemize any of its disbursements on campaign finance reports filed with the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance. It’s anyone’s best guess about where more than $250,000 went.
And you thought the Special Election mess was behind us.
Alexander’s 15-day Pre-Election Report to the KREF – through the period ending 01/21/2008 – has his disbursements listed as “TOTAL” with a total of $116,195.91 spent. The report was amended/refiled on 02/08/2008 and still doesn’t include itemized disbursements.
But it gets better. Alexander’s 30-day Post-Election Report to KREF – through the period ending 03/06/2008 – has his campaign’s disbursements listed as “VARIOUS” with a total of $136,597.45 spent.
Boils down to this: beyond all of the alleged medling, vote buying and disenfranchisement by the Democrats, Scott Alexander and his campaign staff (KDP?) didn’t even bother to follow campaign finance regulations.
Someone has a lot of explaining to do today – not tomorrow. A full itemization needs to be made available to the public ASAP. And with all of the allegations flying around, it would probably be a good idea to include receipts. Because we smell another RPK complaint and should hope for one if people (anyone in the state) think they can get away with even so much as overlooking the very legislation we have put in place in the Commonwealth to protect our citizens from public corruption.
9 responses so far ↓
1 flubby // Mar 25, 2008 at 9:46 am
When asked for a quote Alexander said, “braaaaains.”
Great picture.
2 Jeff Noble // Mar 25, 2008 at 10:14 am
Jake –
I think you are way off base here.
I would ask you to look at any races in the KREF database and come up with one that lists individual disbursements. Go ahead over there to http://www.kref.ky.gov then go to the candidate searchable database and look for disbursements. They are rarely if ever listed – for anyone. To get those, one must ask for a hard copy of the filing from that office.
Brandon Smith’s filing reads the exact same way.
For all the discussion about the 30th, and the fact that we [speaking collectively for the Democrats] lost one we should not have, the reason wasn’t for lack of effort on the part of the KDP. Nor was it because the procedure for choosing Mr. Alexander was flawed. It wasn’t. The KDP By-Laws were followed to a T inasmuch as the nomination process went. And while Mrs. Brock of Harlan County made an honorable argument as to letting County Executive Committees vote on the nominations, which may have given us a different candidate (Roger Noe), the process itself followed the rules, including those providing for a weighted vote of the four county chairs who participated.
What went wrong in the 30th I do not know. I do know it was not the process, nor was it the effort provided by the State party.
3 Jeff Noble // Mar 25, 2008 at 10:21 am
Also, I’d recommend publishing the disclaimer which is printed at the end of the on-line report from the KREF. Here it is:
Disclaimer Notice: The financial data provided at this WorldWide Web site constitutes an unofficial version of election finance data. The information generated is created by Registry
staff and provided for informational purposes only. This data is made available pursuant to KRS 121.120. The electronic information posted at this site does not constitute the
official record of the Registry. The data will represent the most recent data sent to the Registry. The database will be updated once every evening. Original election finance
statements, including itemized expenditure data, are available for public inspection at the offices of the Registry during regular business hours.
For information on how to obtain a copy of an original election finance statement, you may contact the Registry at (502) 573-2226.
, KY.
11 MAR 2008 VARIOUS
$136,597.45
MR. SCOTT ALEXANDER
Period From: 21 JAN 2008 To: 11 MAR 2008
ITEMIZED DISBURSEMENTS SCHEDULE 2
Candidate,Slate of Candidates/Committee:
KREF Filer#195757
Recipient Name
Recipient Address
Recipient city, State, Zip
Occupation
Date
Amount
Disbursement Description
Disbursement Type
VARIOUS
MONETARY
4 jake // Mar 25, 2008 at 10:22 am
Jeff–
Just took a look at some of Stan Lee’s reports for his 45th District House seat. Those reports include disbursements. As do Steve Beshear’s gubernatorial reports.
If it’s the case that KREF is preventing disbursements from being viewed on the actual PDF version of finance reports, that’s just beyond shady.
As far as the race between Alexander and Smith? Well, to suggest that meddling, vote buying and disenfranchisement didn’t occur would be a bit premature at this point. We’ll wait for investigations and all that jazz to wrap up.
5 Jeff Noble // Mar 25, 2008 at 11:28 am
I didn’t make any suggestions as to meddling, vote buying, or disenfranchisement, although that last one sounds intriguing. I did make the factual statement that the 30th nomination process itself was not flawed, and the other factual statement that the KDP made great efforts to elect the nominee which came out of the unflawed process.
Nor do I believe the KREF is making any effort at “preventing disbursements from being viewed.” They clearly state in the disclaimer that the reports generated online are not originals and provide a way for the originals to be viewed.
6 Steve Magruder (I, not D or R) // Mar 25, 2008 at 12:06 pm
The release of this image of Alexander probably proved to the electorate that he has no common sense. Anyone with at least a wee bit of introspective ability would know this image makes him look crazed or cuckoo and would have had another photo taken. With digital cameras, it’s very cheap to do these days.
7 CollegeDem // Mar 25, 2008 at 1:53 pm
I agree with Steve.
however, i’ve seen a few different pics of Alexander, and he looks nutty in all of them. so i’m not sure a different picture would have helped. Releasing no picture at all would probably have been the best move.
8 Brett Hall's #1 Fan // Mar 25, 2008 at 3:32 pm
Jake- You should call KREF and ask them to fax you Alexander’s reports. Their data entry people often enter disbursements in composite into the online database. You will see that in nearly every county race candidate’s disbursements.
The paper copy will list the disbursements. Then you can continue with your conspiracy investigation. Go get those vote haulers!
9 SarahG // Mar 25, 2008 at 4:28 pm
Steve: I’m glad SOMEONE pointed out that the picture was FARK-worthy. The first thing I thought when I saw the article was: who is the crazy guy in the pic? ;-) I knew someone had to comment on it. Definite caption contest material.
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