Watch for Some Spin

From The Lion Star Blog

I’m betting the spin cycle goes in to full gear regarding the resignations from Camino Real Mexican American Democrats starting at around 4:00 this afternoon.

I’ve seen a bit of what is being sold to the public as far as spin goes already and I gotta tell ya, they aren’t doing a very good job!

So let me lay out some important things that really can’t be disputed (from what I can see so far). I apologize in advance for a lot of direct quotes here, but I wanted to be very specific).

On page 2 of the Campaign Finance Guide for Political Committees, “a political committee that meets any one of the descriptions set out below is a general purpose committee.”

Several scenarios are laid out but the one that fits Camino Real MAD is actually used as an example. “A political committee that supports candidates who are members of a particular political party is a general-purpose political committee…”

Which would then lead to the section on page 4 titled Filing an Appointment of Campaign Treasurer. “A group becomes a political committee by its actions, not by filing an appointment of campaign treasurer. A political committee must have a campaign treasurer appointment on file, however before it may engage in certain activity.”

If you follow this link, you will see that there is no treasurer on file for Camino Real Mexican American Democrats, Camino Real MAD, El Paso MAD, or any other variation of the name.

Which is interesting because the next session (also on page 4)called, $500 Thresholds for Filing a Campaign Treasurer Appointment says, “Neither a general-purpose committee nor a specific-purpose committee may accept political contributions that total more than $500 without first filing a campaign treasurer appointment. This is a one-time threshold, not an annual threshold.”

Sources familiar with the organization’s finances say that the organization has collected thousands of dollars in contributions since its creation in El Paso.

I’d also draw your attention back to that link for treasurers and you will see that the Paso Del Norte Chapter of the Tejano Democrats is also missing a filing for a treasurer.

That leads to the section titled, Expenditures by general-purpose committee. “A general-purpose committee may not knowingly make political expenditures that exceed $500 unless it has had its campaign treasurer appointment on file with the Ethics Commission for at least 60 days and has accepted contributions from at least 10 persons.”

Sources say that the organization has spent much more than $500 in political expenditures since its creation.

So what does this all mean?

Well, I am still working on the details here, but there are some rather ominous consequences outlined in the Campaign Finance Guide for Political Committees that you should be aware of.

The section on page 6 titled, Qualifications of Campaign Treasurer states, “A political committee should consider its choice of a campaign treasurer carefully because the treasurer is responsible for fulfilling the duties described in the following section. The committee should also be sure that the treasurer is aware that he or she may be subject to fines or criminal penalties for failure to fulfill those duties. “

Among the duties outlined in the section are “Keeping records.” And “Filing reports. The campaign treasurer must file the political committee’s reports of contributions and expenditures…No action by the filing authority is necessary to trigger the requirement to file reports of contributions and expenditures. Failure to file or late filing may subject the treasurer to fines or possibly even criminal penalties…”

The Camino Real Mexican American Democrats’ current Treasurer is out-going State Representative Norma Chavez and the previous Treasurer is out-going State Representative Norma Chavez.

More to come...