Ethics complaint poses problem for Singh
By Wally EdgeSeema Singh's campaign for the New Jersey State Senate is not going well. A Trenton Times story details an ethics complaint against her -- seemingly at the suggestion of her former boss, Public Advocate Ronald Chen. Last week, a Gannett story revealed that she accepted campaign contributions from top utility company executives just weeks after leaving her job as state Ratepayer Advocate. And Gannett columnist Bob Ingle wrote about the potential conflict of Singh's decision to hire political consultant Steve DeMicco, the husband of Board of Public Utilities Commission President Jeanne Fox.
The ethics investigation lends credibility to comments from Corzine administration officials that Singh was on the verge of being asked to leave state government. Some Democrats say her willingness to challenge popular GOP State Senator Peter Inverso was a face-saving exit strategy.
But Singh has qualified for the first round of public financing -- the only one out of eighteen possible candidates to do that so far -- and her GOP opponent, Assemblyman Bill Baroni, hasn't said a word about Singh's bad press -- not exactly the uber aggressive campaign New Jersey watched in April when Inverso announced his retirement.
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Seema like mistakes!
That's number two or three, depending on if you count the hiring of Steve DeMicco.
As for Baroni's silence, Wally of all people should know that the Assemblyman doesn't run negative campaigns. He doesn't even have to, Seema is doing all the negative campaign work on herself. Baroni is still running an uber aggressive campaign doing what he does best, knocking on doors and telling people what he stands for. (much like he did when he won office originally against an ethically challenged candidate)
Baroni Illegally Wheeled Money to O’Toole?
I just checked Singh’s and Baroni’s ELEC report and was surprised to have seen that Baroni gave a $5000 campaign contribution to O’Toole. I thought clean elections outlawed wheeling money to other campaigns.
wheeling?
I am shocked SHOCKED that Mr. Baroni would wheel money. He's a reformer!!
I am Shocked at your stupidity!
Baroni gave the campaign contribution from his own money. How is that illegal? Prove that he wheeled money. Post a copy from ELEC that says Bill Baroni took 5 grand from his campaign funds and gave them to O'Toole, not one that says Bill Baroni personally gave. You guys are such a joke.
backwardsjersey Here is The Smoking Gun
Here is the link to the Baroni's ELEC Report showing the $5000 donation made to O'Toole campaign:
http://www.elec.state.nj.us/FnOpenClient/FnJavaView.aspx?Library=DefaultIMS:ELEC_ONLINE:FILENET&Id=1652995&ObjType=2&Op=View
You might have to first go to the ELEC home page to download some software to allow you to view it.
I would appreciate a retraction from you after you view it. If you have any problems viewing it, or need help in downloading it, please call ELEC at: 1 (888) 313-ELEC (3532)
hmmmm
While I still can't view the ELEC report or your link which asks for a login/password, I will check it out later on a different computer. I will offer a retraction if it says that money came from Baroni's campaign contributions fund. I think your smoking gun is exactly what I predicted however, the fact that the 5 grand came from Baroni himself.
Consider that he could have only "wheeled" money from his seed money to O'Toole because he does not have any general election money yet. (With the clean elections filing, he will most likely get it soon)
Now I don't know the rules of what candidates can do with seed money, I'd be pretty suprised if any candidate gave some of their seed money to another campaign. Like I said, I think you looked up his personal record of contributions which is his money, not campaign funds, and there's definately no problem with him doing that.
Furthermore, if what you found was really shocking and illegal I'm definately sure that PoliticsNJ or one of the newspapers would have caught it by now. If not, maybe you should sent them the link and see what response you get. Odds are your smoking gun is just his personal records, I'll find out for myself later when I look at the records.
Backwardsjersey
Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I tried the link and got the same log/password request, apparently you are unable to link a page from the R-1 (ELEC’s designation for a candidate non-clean election fund) report to Politicsnj, I tried to paste the page but could not, hence the link.
To view the report in question you will have to follow these steps:
Go to: http://www.elec.state.nj.us/
On this page you need to click on, “Public Information,” and on the next page you need to click on “View a Candidate/Committee Report. There will be a menu asking for candidate name, party etc which you should be able to do. You need to click on Baroni’s name after the search and look on page 8 of the May 8, 2007 to see the $5000 wheeled donation. You might as I previously said have to down load some software from the ELEC site.
Why hasn’t Politicsnj picked up on it, could Baroni be Wally Edge or is it possible that he is one of Baroni’s friends. Politicsnj is more like a “star chamber” (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Chamber) for a complete definition. Given that we don’t know who Wally is, how can we be sure that he doesn’t have a hidden agenda for or against certain individuals?
I am not suggesting that wheeling money to O’Toole was illegal but it definitely was against the spirit of “clean elections”
If what I have said about the $5000 wheeled money is correct, you should rightfully feel indignant about Politicsnj not having covered this and question their impartiality in reporting this and other stories.
your right, but its not illegal and its not wrong.
Well I finally looked at it the other day and you are correct, so I retract my original statements.
However, the correct term is disbursements and it's perfectly legal. As far as the spirit of clean elections, this money was given was seed money and not clean election contributions.
Even more so, if this were bad then I'm pretty sure everyone in the 14th district shouldn't be running for office. While I barely had time, I did look up Linda Greenstein's records and the first and only one I looked at showed disbursements to other candidates as well, including a mayor and I believe the party committee in some town. If you want the proof, I'd be able to show it to you in a day or so. ELEC will not work with my computer, despite if I have the programs or not. While I'm not sure, I'm guessing Seema had disbursements to other candidates as well, she had the max for seed money. As for DeAngelo, Goodwin, and Bushman I'm assuming they could have, but considering that none of them have the name recognition that Baroni or Greenstein have, they probably didn't have much seed money to begin with.