Have you ever checked into the campaign financing for any of your local election races? To be honest, I had never before looked into the financing of any local election campaigns. I was always too busy working, making a living for my family and enjoying life.
But I have time to look into things like this now that I'm retired. That's why I looked into the campaign financing for the Presiding Commissioner race in Gasconade County. I went to the Missouri Ethics Commission website at www.mec.mo.gov.com/. Then I clicked on "Information about >>> Campaign Financing". That brought me to a menu where I selected "Campaign Finance Searches >>> Candidates". Then I did searches for the candidates for Presiding Commissioner. I expected to find campaign finance information for all three candidates: Ron Jost (R), Larry Miskel (R) and Jerry Spurgeon (D).
But here's what I did find when I entered my search parameters as follows:
Registered Candidates and Candidate Committees
Election Year -- Select Year -- -- 2010
Political Office -- COMMISSIONER
Political Subdivision -- GASCONADE COUNTY
Committee Status -- All Committees -- ACTIVE TERMINATED
SEARCH FOR: COMMISSIONER IN -- ALL -- IN GASCONADE COUNTY
MECID -- A101288
COMMITTEE NAME -- MISKEL FOR PRESIDING COMMISSIONER
LAST NAME -- MISKEL
FIRST NAME -- LARRY
YEAR -- 2010
OFFICE SOUGHT -- COMMISSIONER
DISTRICT SUBDIVISION -- GASCONADE COUNTY
STATUS -- Active
Well, you can just imagine my surprise (and disappointment) when all I could find was information regarding Larry Miskel's campaign finances. As of this date (7/28/2010), Ron Jost (R) and Jerry Spurgeon (D) have not yet registered anything about their campaign finances with the Missouri Ethics Commission. When I looked further into this question, I was told that a candidate who expects to be self-financed and expects to limit their campaign contribution receipts and outgoing expenditures to $1,000 or less need not file all the otherwise required financial reports with the Missouri Ethics Commission.
Hmmmmm? So then, by finding nothing on file for Jost and Spurgeon, am I to conclude that Messrs. Jost and Spurgeon expect to have campaign contributions and expenditures (including donations in kind) which total $1,000 or less? I suppose that is the inescapable conclusion ..... unless Jost and/or Spurgeon are just late in filing their reports which were due on 7/15 and 7/26 (8-days prior to primary election date).
As for Larry Miskel's campaign finance reports, they are all there on file with the Missouri Ethics Commission. They all appear to be in good order .... filed on time or ahead of deadline dates, very organized and very complete. If you'd like to take a look at them, you can click on the following link and you will be taken directly to a summary page without need for navigating through the Missouri Ethics Commission website:
http://www.mec.mo.gov/EthicsWeb/CampaignFinance/CF_CommInfo.aspx?MECID=A101288&Year=2010
When you reach the summary page, just click on the "blue" hotlinks near the bottom of the page to access various campaign committee statements and financial reports.
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I know that Jerry Spurgeon is not spending anything on his campaign, but I've seen yard signs, newspaper ads, etc. for Jost. Can he really run a county-wide campaign for less than $1,000?
ReplyDeleteGertrude