I'm Back

The last few months have been sort of busy. I had intended to take a look at the 180-P and 90-P reports, but that didn't happen. You can examine them yourself at the Ethics Board Website.

I plan to be busy the rest of the year filing reports for candidates, but I still have space for new clients. I now have a website at www.genedawson.com, if anyone needs more information on that. I will also be conducting two Ethics Training Seminars on Saturday 12 September 2015. More information on that is available at the website.

A closer look, Part 4

Prior to his 2012 election to the Louisiana Public Service Commission, Scott Angelle served 6 months as Interim Lieutenant Governor, and before that as Secretary of the Department of Natural Resources under two Governors.  His 2014 Annual Report brings $175,574.96 forward from 2013.  He reports $1,516,900.82 total receipts, and after subtracting $28,794.55 in-kind contributions and $232,370.28 total disbursements, he closes 2014 with $1,431,310.95.  Schedule A-3 (Other Receipts) of his report totals $1.27 interest.  PAC contributions total $19,000.00 for the year.

Of those Total Receipts $1,159,650.82 came from Louisiana, $357,250.00 from elsewhere. There are no obvious excessive contributions.  There are a few contributors with similar names, that I assume are distinct legal entities.

Of Total Disbursements $153,519.20 stayed in Louisiana, $78,851.08 went out of state. Consulting and Polling account for 78% of his expenditures, or $120,629.50. Office expenses totaling $56,198.33 include Account Fees, Accounting Services, Bank Service Charges, Delivery Charges, Rent, Office Supplies, Payroll, Payroll Services, Payroll Taxes, Postage, Printing, Shipping, Telephone and Internet Services & Installation, and Utilities. 

Event Expenses total $16,119.21, Sponsorships total $12,100.00 and Campaign Paraphernalia & Signs total $9,907.98. Travel expenses of $9,573.90 include Airline Travel, Hotel, Mileage & Fuel, and Transportation Services. Advertising & Photography total $4,758.00. IT related expenditures of $3,015.59 include Database Online Service, Digital Advertising, Online Business Conference Services, Secure Domain Names, and Web Design, Hosting & Services. The remaining $67.77 went for Registration Fees ane Food for Staff.

A closer look, Part 3

Jay Dardenne has been Lieutenant Governor since November 22, 2010. Before that he served four years as Secretary of State, in the State Senate from 1992 to 2006, and on the East Baton Rouge Metropolitan Council before that. He brings $1,225,114.71 forward from his 2013 Annual Report. With $690,128.62 Total Receipts in 2014, less $326,051.28 Total Disbursements and $39,665.75 In-Kind Contribution he has $1,549,526.30 at the end of the year. He shows no Contributions from Political Action Committees or Ticket Sales. HIs Other Receipts consist of Refunds and Reimbursements.

Of his Total Receipts $631,995.61 came from Louisiana, $58,133.01 from elsewhere. His largest receipt is a $13,632.01 refund, reported on Schedule A-3, Other Receipts. (A refund is not a contribution and therefore not subject to limits.) There are no obvious excessive contributions. I did see four apparently related legal entities that each gave maximum contributions, however I presume that each has its own limit. There is also an LLC that contributed under three different DBAs, but the aggregate doesn't approach the contribution limit.

Of his Total Disbursements $250,962.23 stayed in Louisiana, $75,089.05 went elsewhere. Consulting accounts for the largest portion, $185,583.41, which includes Commissions, Retainers and Fees, as well as Accomodations, Airfare, Car Rental and Parking for consultants. Expenditures identified as relating to fundraising account for only $3,232.86, which includes Food, catering, email, supplies and Gifts. Postage, Printing and mailing account for $26,836.39, and Accounting & Administrative services, Advertising, Cell phone service, Office supplies and postage, Service fees and Storage account for $48,106.32.

We're up to $263,758.98. Of the remaining $62,292.30, $49,398.29 went for what I call "21st Century Campaigning," and was reported as "Digital strategy consulting," "Online advertising," "Web development," "Web hosting," "Website development," and "Website development consulting & marketing." Meals with staff and other meetings only account for $1,663.61. That leaves $11,230.40 in such categories as Filing Fees, Membership dues, Mileage reimbursement, Sponsorship, Lodging, Promotional event, Republican event tickets, Supplies, Supplies for event, Survey research, Table and chair rental, Tables rented for event, Thank you cards, Tickets to fundraiser & Transaction fees.

In Part 4 we will look at Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle.

A closer look, Part 2

State Representative John Bel Edwards, the only Democrat, so far, to formally announce for Governor, starts the year with $474,725.46 carried over from his 2013 Annual report.  Adding $360,007.37 total receipts, subtracting $108,458.16 total disbursements and $5,380.37 in-kind contributions leaves him with $745,894.30 to start 2015.  His summary page also shows that $41,750.00 came from Political Action Committees and he has invested $250,000.00 of his campaign funds.  It does not indicate that any of his Contributions came from the sale of tickets to fundraising events. He shows no "Other Receipts," "Other Disbursements," or "Anonymous Contributions." Schedule E-1 reports 3 "Contribution Refunds" for which there is no corresponding contribution.  These may have been disclosed on an earlier report. There are no obvious excessive contributions.

Of his Total Receipts, $325,907.37 come from Louisiana, $34,100.00 from elsewhere.

Of total disbursements $90,664.13 stayed in Louisiana, $17,794.03 went out of state.  Fundraising accounts for $24,398.85, including Catering, Entertainment, Staff, Lodging, Printing & Services. Database & Email Services, Social Media, Domain & Website Design account for $18,978.27.  He reports a total of $32,500.00 for General Campaign Consulting, $9,000.00 for Polling and $5,277.63 for Printing of Campaign Materials.  Gasoline, Postage and Service Fees account for $5,985.25.

We're up to $96,140.00, or over 86% of his total disbursements.  The rest is listed as Advertising, Box Rental, Caucus Dues, Charitable Contributions, a Contribution (to the Democratic Party,) the Contribution Refunds mentioned earlier, Convention Fees, Meals (only 1, at McDonalds in Paradis,) Office Supplies, Parade Fee, Parking, Refund, a Sponsorship & Travel Expenses.

This has been quicker and even less interesting than Senator Vitter's report, both of which are to be expected from about a fifth of the data.  (I have also learned a little more about the tools I use to examine the data.)  Since this post is much shorter that the last one, I'm tempted to plow ahead through the next report, but I will resist.

So in Part 3 we will look at Lieutenant Governor Jay Dardenne.

A closer look, Part 1

This has taken longer to write than I had anticipated, and is less interesting than I had hoped. I will do my best to keep my opinions to myself, and just report the facts as taken from the candidates reports.

Lets start with Front runner David Vitter, an incumbent United States Senator. Due to restrictions on use of funds raised for Federal office, he starts 2014 with a zero balance. You can see from the summary page that his annual report shows $4,107,597.72 total receipts and $600,212.83 total disbursements. Taking out $3,210.75 worth of in-kind contributions, he closes 2014 with $3,504,174.14. In addition to the in-kinds, we need to take out $391.13 in "Other Receipts" (apparently refunds in this case) to arrive at the $4,103,995.84 figure for "Contributions" reported on line 1 of his summary page.

The Summary Page also shows that $80,000.00 came from Political Action Committees and $708,600.00 from the sale of tickets to fundraising events.  Things of value received by the Campaign are reported on three schedules.  Schedule A-1 is for Contributions, A-2 is for In-Kind Contributions and A-3 is for Other Receipts.  The $3,210.75 reported on Schedule A-2 (page 949 of his report) appears to indicate supporters paying portions of the fundraising expenses.  (I have complained about this method of reporting because it does not indicate who was paid, but Ethics has accepted this as an in-kind contribution for years.)

The spreadsheet includes in-kind contributions and other receipts and I have not removed them for the following calculations. Of his $4,107,597.72 total receipts $3,543,940.42 come from Louisiana and $563,657.30 come from out of state. His two largest, at $10,000.00 each, appear at first glance to exceed the $5000 limit, however his "Other Disbursements" indicate the excess was refunded.

He also reports 24 "ANONYMOUS CONTRIBUTION"s (using a PO box in DC) totalling $2,845.00. The dates range from 9/10 through 12/30, and all but one (on 10/10/2014 for $2,600.00) $100 or less, most in the single digit range. Candidates are required to turn funds from anonymous sources over to the State Treasurer. The Candidates Report Form provides Schedule F for Anonymous Contributions. The Candidate reports the amount, date received, and date transmitted to the state treasurer. Reporting on Schedule A-1 indicates that the Campaign still has the funds. I could find no expenditure to the State Treasurer. A cursory search of the Campaign Finance Disclosure Act did not yield a deadline for doing so, and I can't see a $3000 mistake in a $4 million campaign causing a lot of trouble.

So that's where the money came from. Where did it go? Well, $268,588.69 of it stayed in Louisiana, the rest went out of state. What was it used for? Fundraising costs, including consulting and catering, account for $161,565.88. There is also $4,067.35 for Food & Beverage, $37,560.69 for Travel and $298.30 for Parking, most (if not all) of which appears to be related to fundraising, which would give us $203,492.22 (or almost 34% of his total disbursements) going to fundraising. He also reports "DIRECT MAIL COST" of $141,610.79 and "POSTAGE" of $18,627.82 for a total of $160,238.61 mailing stuff, much of which we can assume was related to fundraising, bringing that total to $301,849.40. We are now at over half of his disbursements for fundraising. He also reports "COMPUTER EXPENSE" of $7,200.00, "ELECTRONIC MEDIA EXPENSE" of $59,561.85 and "WEBSITE COST" of $21,747.25 or $88,509.10 for running a 21st Century campaign.

So far we have accounted for $390,358.50 of his $553,437.83 general expenditures. MEDIA EXPENSE of $6,544.77, $27,000.00 for "CAMPAIGN STRATEGY," $9924.88 for OFFICE EXPENSE & RENT and $489.43 TELEPHONE bring us to $434,317.58. The remaining $119,120.25 is reported in categories like "ACCOUNTING SERVICES," "BANK CHARGES," "BANNERS," "COLLATERAL," "CREDIT CARD PROCESSING FEES," "LEGAL FEES," "LUNCH REIMBURSEMENT," "MEMBERSHIP DUES," "SPONSORSHIP," and "T-SHIRTS."

That leaves us with $46,775 Other Disbursements on Schedule E-2, all of which are described as "REFUND OF CONTRIBUTION."  I already mentioned two $10,000 contributions, and there was another for $5200.  The excess of those were refunded.  There were four contributors who did not exceed the limit, but had their entire contribution refunded.  The remaining refunds were to contributors who made multiple contributions and exceeded their limits along the way.  The excess was refunded.

Next we will look at State Representative John Bel Edwards, the only Democrat in the race (so far.)

Follow the Money

Probably the best advise for how to figure out what is really going on. There is even a national website called FollowTheMoney.org., run by the National Institute on Money in State Politics. They used to call me for help obtaining data on Louisiana elections. Now that all of our District and Major level candidates are required to disclose electronically, and that data can be downloaded in CSV format, it's much easier to obtain. I would strongly recommend you use them, and fec.gov to keep up with the 2016 Congressional and Presidential campaigns.

But this year, with all Statewide and Legislative offices, and others, up for grabs our own Ethics Board Website is the place to be. Annual and Supplemental reports were due last Wednesday. We have 4 candidates, so far, for Governor of Louisiana: David Vitter, John Bel Edwards, Jay Dardenne, and Scott Angelle. They all filed on time. Three of them waited until the deadline to file. Jay Dardenne filed his the Friday before. Their reports are linked above. I've downloaded their data into a spreadsheet, and in my next blog we'll start looking at it.

Allow me to introduce myself

My name is Gene Dawson. (Actually, it's Vernon Eugene Dawson, Jr., but almost nobody knows me by that.) And as of the publication of this post I am a retired Civil Servant in Louisiana.

I just retired from the Louisiana Ethics Administration Program. I worked there from 7/1/1998 until 2/15/2015. My job title was "IT Technical Support Specialist," but what I really did was technical support for the LEADERS program. That stands for "Louisiana Ethics Administration Disclosure and Electronic Reporting System." In case you're not familiar with it, that is the system used by Candidates for public office in Louisiana (candidates for Federal office not included) to disclose to the public where their campaign money comes from, and where it goes.

Many people seem to miss the last word in that acronym: System. They think of LEADERS as the software used to file reports. That is merely one component of a system. LEADERS is in fact just a name.

I only point that out because it has been a burr under my saddle for a long time.

As I said I have done technical support for that system for over 16 years. Along the way I have had little choice but to become familiar with the Campaign Finance laws in Louisiana. Not being one to let that experience go to waste, I am now available as a consultant.

It's an election year here in Louisiana. So if you're thinking about running for office, or you know someone who is, you might want to give me a call.