I’m still laughing. I just got a call from Joel Runck a reporter from KBJR TV. It seems Move Forward Duluth which spent untold and anonymous amounts of money to discredit Let Duluth Vote has just asked the St. Louis County Attorney to investigate LDV for failing to disclose its spending and contributions. I was so amused that I just laughed at the call and told Joel that I’d be happy to talk with him.
Then I thought better of it and asked if he would be so good as to send me the press release because without knowing the exact charge I should check it out.
I spent a furious ten minutes looking at the state statutes cited by Move Forward Duluth. By golly, it looks to me as though we might have been required to submit a finance report. If so, the fault has been all mine because I understood the law to require reports only for the promotion of an existing ballot question not for trying to get a ballot question on the ballot through petitions. Well, my bad. Both, seem to require state reports if you look at the statute’s definition of “committees.”
Subd. 4.Committee.
“Committee” means a corporation or association or persons acting together to influence the nomination, election, or defeat of a candidate or to promote or defeat a ballot question. Promoting or defeating a ballot question includes efforts to qualify or prevent a proposition from qualifying for placement on the ballot.
This is very funny because its not just LDV that should have been submitting reports but Move Forward Duluth. Their long winded efforts to discredit Let Duluth Vote were all intended to encourage the School Board to prevent a referendum.
But unlike Let Duluth Vote which has been pretty transparent from the beginning Move Forward Duluth’s financing has been shrouded in secrecy. Where it got tens of thousands of dollars for newspaper ads and its website bad mouthing the idea of a referendum is any body’s guess. I’ll bet it got a lot of checks in excess of $100 which should have been reported. In fact, anyone contributing over $100 would have to be named and the limit for such contributions would be, if memory serves, $300. No corporate money could legally be donated to discourage the ballot question. I’ll bet quite a few construction companies would be fined for their contributions to the MFD campaign to discredit Let Duluth Vote.
It looks like Move Forward Duluth is doing it best to cover its tracks. I just checked out its website: http://www.moveforwardduluth.net
It seems to have disappeared.
By the way. The infraction is a misdemeanor.
