FEC

This lesson in hypocrisy brought to you by the letters “G-O-P”

This post originally appeared on AFLCIONC.org.

On November 29, the Republican-controlled General Assembly adopted an error-filled, non-binding resolution lambasting the DNC for not doing more to hire in-state, non-union companies to work the 2012 Convention in Charlotte. It falsely claims that the Democratic National Convention is actively trying not to hire North Carolina workers.

“This is such an unnecessary resolution,” objected Rep. Paul Luebke because, in fact, “the DNC has an agreement to hire local people as much as possible.” To say otherwise is “simply not true,” he added.

Charlotte-area Rep. Becky Carney blasted Speaker Thom Tillis for wasting time and taxpayer dollars for a special session on a resolution having “nothing to do with the critical issues in this state right now. We need to be up here talking about jobs for every North Carolinian that’s unemployed,” said Carney. “And what have we done here for three days? We have not talked about jobs.”

Unfortunately for North Carolina workers, state Republicans can’t be bothered to put their money where their mouth is. According to filings with the Federal Elections Commission, the NCGOP has outsourced its video production, logo design, and web services to a company in New Jersey. Specifically, the NCGOP has paid one Mr. Riccardo Diaz, the Director of Media Affairs for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, $5,589.90 to produce web videos attacking the DNC and President Obama, to design the logo for its 2012 campaign, and to create the website for itself and for its own state convention!

How’s that for chutzpah?

It ain't your dad's (or granddad's) Chamber of Commerce, folks:

Having aired more than 8,000 campaign ads on behalf of GOP Senate candidates alone and having spent 85 percent of its current expenditure on Republicans, the Chamber's spending has "dwarfed every other issue group and most political party candidate committee spending."

What the ThinkProgress investigation found is that the Chamber has spearheaded efforts "to raise money from foreign corporations, including ones controlled by foreign governments" and funneled that money into its general 501(c)(6) account. Foreign members send money either directly to the U.S. Chamber or to their country's local American Chamber (AmCham), which then transfers dues payments back to the Chamber's H Street office in Washington, D.C.

Hat-tip to Rob Schofield of the Progressive Pulse.

First, let's get this out of the way - Robin Hayes is not running for congress. I don't care how many times he says he plans to run if nobody steps up to challenge Larry. He raised $644, has about $18,000 on hand and carries $180,000 in campaign debts. Ignore him.

Quarterly FEC reports are in and Larry Kissell is in the top tier of North Carolina Congressional incumbents from both parties in money raised for the quarter. Only Etheridge and McIntyre outraised Kissell and only by about $10,000 each. He is in the middle tier for cash on hand.

That's big news for those of us used to the press and pols criticizing Larry's fundraising ability. Hopefully, he can line the war chest even more before a challenger files and starts raising money. Like his politics 100% or not, it's important to protect our incumbents and it's nice if they have a huge head start so we can put our energy and money into helping Democratic challengers.

The FEC recently came out with its 1Q09 fundraising reports for the members of Congress. North Carolina's is as follows:

GK Butterfield: $61,080 raised, $147,144 CoH
Bob Etheridge: $156,711 raised, $772,489 CoH
Walter Jones: $16,050 raised, $9,170 CoH
David Price: $11,088 raised, $284,161 CoH
Virginia Foxx: $64,132 raised, $942,195 CoH
John Coble: $17,407 raised, $487,904 CoH
Mike McIntyre: $64,159 raised, $633,090 CoH
Larry Kissel: $164,960 raised, $137,257 CoH (with $20,000 outstanding debt)
Sue Myrick: $49,876 raised, $96,557 CoH
Patrick McHenry: $68,521 raised, $64,936 CoH (with $245,500 in outstanding debt)
Heath Shuler: $189,744 raised, $1,052,214 CoH
Melvin Watt: $14,500 raised, $100,378 CoH
Brad Miller: $43,912 raised, $37,310 CoH (with $16,506 in outstanding debt)

What does all of this mean? Probably not a whole lot.

Kay Hagan is cosponsoring legislation introduced by Russ Feingold that will hold U.S. Senators to the same financial filing standards that members of the U.S. House must meet. Currently, senators are not required to file their campaign finance reports electronically. This means a delay of weeks before their reports can be reviewed by the public. During a campaign, those weeks can be crucial as voters are denied the ability to see who is financially supporting the candidates running for senate.

Political action committees, U.S. House candidates and presidential candidates all have to file electronically. Members of the Senate still fill out paper forms, pass them along to the secretary of the senate where they are then transmitted to the FEC. Transmission times have increased in recent years as the Senate grapples with a shortage of workers fluent in Morse code.

In a little noticed action in 2007 the National Association of Realtors was fined $78,000 by the Federal Election Commission for violations of election law including $282,500 spent on mailings and advertisements expressly advocating the election of Richard Burr for Senate in 2004. The FEC found that the National Association of Realtors 527 Fund failed to register and file disclosure reports as a Federal political committee and accepted contributions in violation of Federal limits and source prohibitions. In total the NAR 527 Fund spent $2.8 million advocating the election of 9 federal candidates in 2004 including Richard Burr, their favorite son Johnny Isakson, a Georgia realtor, and the disgraced Rick Renzi.

The campaigning for Richard Burr spurred the complaint by one North Carolina man, Thomas Strini, of Mint Hill, and subsequent enforcement action by the FEC.

Teacher and congressional candidate, Larry Kissell, has narrowed the money gap with Multi-millionaire congressman, Robin Hayes. The gap is still huge, but the great news is Larry Kissell is not only in a better position in the polls at this point this cycle, but he has five times the staff to run his ground game, three times the cash on hand and Robin Hayes has more than doubled his expenditures in order to........run about even with Larry.

"Maybe Elizabeth Dole doesn't stand by her ad because she knows that for the past six years she hasn't been standing up for North Carolina's families."

Today the NCDP filed their second ethics complaint in a week against Elizabeth Dole. This time its Federal Election Law that Elizabeth Dole has violated. For more, continue below the fold.