Archive for July 17th, 2008
MO: Election Robo-Calls Cannot be Stopped
Last Updated on Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:30 Written by rslcpol Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:30
From seMissourian.com:
Leroy Schenimann wants to know how he can stop the prerecorded political campaign calls from ringing his home phone.
The short answer: He can’t.
Schenimann, 52, said he received two such calls Tuesday and a third Wednesday morning at his home near Fruitland.
“Most of these are political polls. One was asking if I was going to vote for the guy running for the Republican governorship,” he said.
Another call, he said, “was someone running for state office. It started out with the sale of Anheuser-Busch. I don’t get what that has to do with an election. I hung up on them, and they called right back. I hung up again, and they called back again. You can’t even talk to these people — most are prerecorded and you can’t cut them off.”
Schenimann said he called Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle after getting a similar spate of automated calls leading up to the 2004 election.
That’s when he learned political candidates are among those who do not have to abide by the Missouri’s No Call rules, which allow people to protect their phone numbers from telemarketing involving the sale of goods and services, according to Scott Holste, spokesman for Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon’s office.
Posted under Attorney General News, State Legislature News | No Comments
AZ: Regulating Car Dealers
Last Updated on Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:29 Written by rslcpol Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:29
From AZstarnet.com:
It’s hard to determine how long state agencies might have known about the misdeeds at Wildcat Mitsubishi.
There’s no oversight agency specifically for car dealers. And privacy rules surrounding the complaint process prevent many state agencies from being able to say whether a business is even under investigation.
Agencies say they share complaints with each other, but each seems to do its work purely within its own purview, making it impossible to discover just how egregiously a certain business acts until the evidence is overwhelming on all fronts.
“We don’t regulate businesses as a general rule. We wait to see if a fraud is committed and then we take action,” state Attorney General Terry Goddard said.
He said auto dealers tend to be close to the top or at the very top of the list of businesses his office watches for fraud because his staff fields so many complaints about the industry.
The office can charge up to $10,000 per violation against the Consumer Fraud Act. But the act also is the reason the office can’t confirm if a business is under scrutiny.
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AZ: AG Says No To Using Funds For School Vouchers
Last Updated on Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:17 Written by rslcpol Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:17
From the Arizona Republic:
The speaker of the state House of Representatives can’t use excess House funds to pay for two private-school voucher programs axed in the state budget, according to an opinion released Wednesday by the Attorney General’s Office.
House Speaker Jim Weiers announced last week a plan to use $5 million of about $9 million in a House contingency fund to pay for the programs, which provided scholarships to hundreds of disabled and foster-care children to attend private schools. The programs, which were declared unconstitutional by the Arizona Court of Appeals, were not funded in the new state budget that began July 1.
“I am very disheartened and very upset,” Weiers said of the opinion, written by the state solicitor general. “It seemed like a perfect solution for a god-awful situation.”
Weiers said he planned to meet with state schools Superintendent Tom Horne next week to see if there are other ways to save the programs.
Last week, Weiers and Horne entered into an interagency agreement to fund the programs with the House monies. They then requested that Attorney General Terry Goddard approve the move, which Horne said he needed before going forward.
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Ohio AG Scandal Update: The Accusers are now the Accused
Last Updated on Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:05 Written by rslcpol Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:05
From The Columbus Dispatch:
The two women whose sexual-harassment complaints ballooned into a scandal that forced out former Attorney General Marc Dann and many of his top lieutenants are being accused of creating a hostile workplace themselves.
Vanessa Stout and Cindy Stankoski are named in equal-employment-opportunity complaints filed by two female co-workers who accuse them of dirty looks, impolitic comments and huffy behavior that add up to intimidation.
Stout, 26, and Stankoski, 27, set off the chain of events that led to Dann’s resignation May 14 and the ouster of several senior aides who were found to have harassed them, condoned harassment, stifled their complaints or tampered with an investigation.
Both women still work in the office. Two co-workers, Amanda Saxton and Erica Haske, have filed complaints alleging that Stout and Stankoski have attempted to intimidate them through words and actions.
Posted under Attorney General News, Dems Behaving Badly | 1 Comment
NY: Campaign Filings Give A Preview of the Fall
Last Updated on Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:04 Written by rslcpol Thursday, 17 July 2008 11:04
From the IthacaJournal:
Some candidates stockpiled cash for races that never came to be. Others are savings for this November, while some are looking to 2010 and beyond.
The campaign filings this week by the state’s political leaders put into focus the critical nature of this year’s legislative races and the big money that will go to them.
But it also gives a glimpse into how candidates — in and out of office — can raise and spend millions of dollars in New York’s loose campaign finance system.
“It’s scandalous,” said Russ Haven, counsel for the New York Public Interest Research Group. “When you step back from this and get outside the beltway mentality, where people are feeling such real economic pain — gas at $4 a gallon — it makes you realize just how big these numbers are.”
In just a few months, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and Gov. David Paterson, both Democrats, raised a whopping $5.5 million total for their campaigns — and those races are still two years away.
Of course, there’s the speculation that Cuomo and Paterson could both be vying for the same job — governor in 2010. And neither is giving the other much of a financial edge — both have about $3 million in their warchests.
Posted under State Legislature News | No Comments
MD: GOP Blasts Secretary of State Pay
Last Updated on Thursday, 17 July 2008 10:55 Written by rslcpol Thursday, 17 July 2008 10:55
From SoMDNews.com:
House Republican leaders late last month called on Martin O’Malley to appoint a secretary of state, saying the governor is paying an interim secretary and his deputy more than state law would allow him to pay a permanent secretary of state.
‘‘The governor again is skirting the law to reward his friends and cronies,” House Minority Leader Anthony J. O’Donnell said.
Interim Secretary of State Dennis C. Schnepfe, who was appointed by O’Malley (D) in January 2007, makes $94,608 a year, according to the governor’s office.
State law dictates that the secretary of state’s base salary is to be $78,750. The salary increases to $81,667 in the second year and to $87,500 in the fourth year of a term.
Schnepfe’s current salary is a result of his long tenure with state government. During his appointment as the interim secretary, he is permitted under state rules to continue earning his current pay.
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Young Conservative Movement in Washington State
Last Updated on Thursday, 17 July 2008 10:33 Written by rslcpol Thursday, 17 July 2008 10:33
From Postman on Politics:
Twenty-something conservatives do exist, and they’re getting increasingly active, said 22-year-old Peter Cowman, the director of MoveRed, the King County Republican Party’s “youth coalition,” an outreach effort aimed at the 16-28-year-old age bracket.
“We recognize that for the first time in a long time, young people have the opportunity to lead and take responsibility at a young age,” Cowman said.
The former Marine is a senior majoring in political science at the University of Washington. He’s a firm believer in the value of getting involved; the younger, the better.
As if to illustrate his point, Cowman assembled about 100 or so like-minded young conservatives on Monday night for MoveRed’s summer BBQ, marking the group’s one-year anniversary.
Several local GOP favorites were on hand, including Washington state Attorney General Rob McKenna, and Nick Bozarth, the 22-year-old mayor of Napavine, recently profiled in The Times.
Steve Litzow, the Mercer Island councilman running for state representative from the 41st District; Todd Gibson, running in the 33rd District; and Glenn Anderson, running for re-election from the 5th Legislative District, also showed up to stump.
“It’s about connecting with people and listing to people,” said Gibson. “That’s the way we’re going to win, that’s the way we’re going to make a difference.”
Posted under Attorney General News, State Legislature News | No Comments
PA: State Rep. Proposes Ban On Bonuses
Last Updated on Thursday, 17 July 2008 10:00 Written by rslcpol Thursday, 17 July 2008 10:00
From the Bulletin:
State Rep. Rick Taylor, D-151st, of Montgomery County yesterday proposed to prohibit any bonuses from General Assembly caucuses to their employees.
“I think bonuses are susceptible to abuse,” Mr. Taylor said. “Bonuses tend to be subjective unless there are tight, tight rules as to how you give out bonuses.”
Mr. Taylor is among the state legislators mentioned in the state attorney general’s presentiment issued late last week whose 2006 state House of Representatives campaign allegedly benefited from taxpayer money. In all, the four Assembly caucuses are alleged to have given out as much as $3.6 million in bonuses for campaign work, with $1.9 million coming from the House Democratic Caucus.
Awarding of bonuses for that purpose would violate Pennsylvania law. The state alleges that Rachel Manzo and Beth Marietta both got compensation from the caucus while working on Mr. Taylor’s campaign. No government entity has yet determined the Democrat to have known that these workers received state payments while assisting him.
His bill would forbid any state compensation to legislative staffers surpassing their wages or salaries, broadening current law which only prohibits bonuses for political work. A House Democratic Caucus rule went into effect last year to that effect and Mr. Taylor wants to codify it to affect all the caucuses.
Posted under State Legislature News | No Comments