Finally, the snooze fest which was the 2009 Election seems to be heating up. To be fair, Hillary Kwiatek and Glenn Eckhart have been waging a spirited campaign for months. Hillary has attended many county commissioner meetings and that campaign in the swing 5th District has been hot all along. It has been seen as the real decider in the balance of power on the Board of Commissioners ever since the Democrats captured 2 at-large seats in 2007 to draw to 5-4.
In the 1st, it was hard to remember that Jeanne McNeill and Tom Creighton were running. Theirs was a quiet campaign.
At issue, of course, is control of the Lehigh County Board of Commissioners. Their main function, of course is to be a check and balance on the County Executive, likely to be Democrat Don Cunningham.
So, of course, things got real hot at the suggestion that Don Cunningham had funneled money to the two Democratic candidates, McNeil and Kwiatek, thought to be in the closest races.
Cunningham is upfront that he indeed contributed $72,000 to the state committee. That is not at all unusual and it is highly legal (not even a question). As Cunningham told me “It’s no secret that I spent the better part of the past two years doing an exploratory campaign for governor.” That campaign generated contributions, which were made on a state-wide basis by Democrats wanting to support Cunningham for Governor or other state-wide office.
Much of his war chest came from these statewide activities so it made plenty of sense, he explains, and it is easy to see, that he give some back to the state committee. He gave them $72,000 or less than 10% of his total. “The state party makes decisions in concert with the county chairman,” Cunningham explained in deciding which candidates to support.
Cunningham did give $250 donations to the commissioner candidates. “Democrats contribute to Democrats and Republicans contribute to Republicans,” he explained. He is right. Republican Dean Browning’s campaign has contributed on the GOP side, so there is some balance. Browning has contributed to the Lehigh County Victory PAC as well and is former chair of the Lehigh County Republican Party, which has supported their candidates with in-kind services. So, symmetry indeed exists.
It isn’t strange that Cunningham, the top Democrat in the county, and Browning, the political force among the GOP on the Board of Commissioners would take the lead. Both men seem to aspire to higher offices. Cunningham was looking at a run for governor. Browning could be a candidate to succeed Cunningham at some point or perhaps a General Assembly candidate.
Browning also is expected to make a run for Chairman of the Board of Commissioners if his party can retain power. That requires winning in the 1st and 5th. Browning, some Republican critics allege, sided with Cunningham on two key 5-4 votes (Linden Street Bridge and Safe Streets) to get support for his run as chairman. With Percy Dougherty as the current chair, even if Browning picks up Andy Roman, Glenn Eckhart and Tom Creighton, if the other incumbents win, he’d need a Democratic vote to be chairman. So, we have some real good politics going on.
An unidentified source told me Dean Browning appears to be trying to buy Percy’s Chairmanship of the Board. Browning has donated an identical, substantial amount of “in-kind” contributions to each of the four Republican candidates other than Percy--$2,327.50. Meanwhile, the Victory PAC is largely underwritten by Dean, his family and his co-workers, has done the same thing with $1,700.25 in-kind contributions. Eckhart refers to Dean’s contribution as “consulting” while others peg both as “mailers”.
I was also corrected in suggesting that candidates usually spend under $10,000 for their seats. The source points out Dean spent roughly $40K losing to Dan McCarthy four years ago and over $50K to get his current seat. “Not all Commissioner seats go for $10K or so!”
Yesterday, the questions about Cunningham funneling funds to the Democratic candidates led to a response from the Democratic County Committee suggesting the Republicans had failed to file proper finance documents. At the same time, McNeil and Kwiatek amended their documents to show the in-kind help from the state committee in sending out mailers.
It seems right now as if everyone has filed what they need to file. With on-line filing, this should be seamless but we are not seamless yet, it seems!
What follows are the responses of the various parties. I present them as they arrived in real time. Some facts changed after the responses but they are instructive as to how the candidates and parties reacted in real-time and in a big way. All 4 candidates responded to me. The Dems and GOP both issued statements. Don Cunningham responded. Two other commissioner commented.
Rick Daugherty, the Democratic chair, said in a release:
Despite talking about campaign finance reform, Republican candidates Glenn Eckhart and Tom Creighton have, as of today, failed to disclose and file key campaign finance information.
As of today:
The Lehigh County Republican Committee FAILED to file a financial report with the County, State, or any regulatory body at all.
The Lehigh County “Victory PAC,” which paid for direct mail for Tom Creighton and Glenn Eckhart, FAILED to file a report with the County, State, or any regulatory body at all.
Tom Creighton remains the only county commission candidate to FAIL to file a financial report with Lehigh County. The deadline was Friday, October 23rd.
Glenn Eckhart FAILED to disclose an in-kind contribution from the shadowy “Lehigh County Victory PAC,” which sent mail on Eckhart’s behalf.
As of today, neither the Lehigh County Republican Committee, nor the Lehigh County Victory PAC, nor candidate Tom Creighton’s financial disclosure reports have been received in Lehigh County or in Harrisburg.
Creighton and Eckhart’s negative and misleading mail pieces, both paid for by organizations that failed to file campaign finance reports, accuse Democratic candidates Hillary Kwiatek and Jeanne McNeill, of refusing to sign a spending pledge they were never given. Creighton’s piece also accuses McNeill of refusing to “stand up to union bosses” even though she has never held elected office.
“Running negative, dishonest and misleading mail pieces is the worst kind of politics,” said Daugherty. “It’s bad enough that their candidates, to hide their record of saying one thing and doing another, choose to misrepresent our candidates’ views.”
“When you’re Glenn Eckhart, a candidate who missed two years of budget hearings and when he finally bothered to show up, fought against more police on the streets, it’s clear why you don’t want to talk about the issues,” said Daugherty. “When you’re Tom Creighton, and you know that Jeanne McNeill is the only candidate who will keep taxes low, ensure fiscal responsibility, and preserve open space, it’s clear why you don’t want to talk about the issues either.”
“I ask all candidates to focus on the issues instead of distractions,” said Daugherty. “Our candidates filed their reports on time and are well within an acceptable time frame for amendments, but no one has even seen a filing for Tom Creighton, the Lehigh County Victory PAC, or the Lehigh County Republican Party.”
Soon, it turned out that the Republicans had filed as required.
Dean Browning e-mailed to say he had talked with Daugherty to set him straight. He also noted the Kwiatek and McNeill amendments to their statements. “Kwiatek overlooked an in-kind contribution of $17.5K and McNeill overlooked an in-kind contribution of $18.8K – total missing amount was over $36K. Hell of a lot for a District Commissioner race.”
“As for the Republicans, he noted: I had a chance to speak with Rick Daugherty about this to tell him that he was wrong on his facts. Not sure what he will do with that info but I told him that the Lehigh County Victory PAC had always filed its finance reports and I gave him a link to the state site. I’ve attached a printout for your review. Also, as it turns out the Lehigh County Republican Committee filed a timely report as well and I’ve attached a copy. It took me all of 30 seconds to get to these pages so I’m not sure why Rick couldn’t do the same. In addition, Glenn’s report clearly listed an in-kind contribution from the Victory PAC as did Tom’s (it is now online). Again, Tom met the filing requirements in that his report was postmarked the day before they were due.”
OK, I am not sure if the Dems will revise their press release but everything seems cleared up. County GOP leader Bill Platt was very clear in his response to Daugherty,“I saw Daugherty's press release. I am going to issue a retort. He lied. The LCRC filed an accurate finance report on-line on October 23, 2009 with the Commonwealth of PA. Daugherty should've done his homework before lying to the public.”
So what are the candidates saying:
Jeanne McNeill wrote :
“I would like you to know that I have amended my report to reflect the in-kind donation from the Democratic Party. This was taken care of as soon as I got home from work.
I have always worked hard to maintain openness and honesty. I received the info on Friday and my report had been finished and turned in by Wednesday. I did not realize that I could amend it to reflect the change. I thought I had to wait until the next report to do so. I was unable to add it to my first report because I did not have the figures in hand and did not want to guess at something so important. If you ask anyone that knows me, they will tell you that I am an upstanding decent person who always does what is right. I apologize to anyone that felt it was not handled in the correct way.
I also urge you to take a look at my opponent's campaign finance report. He reports no expenditures of campaign funds this period even though I was the target of an unfair and misleading attack mailer by him. “
As I sort all of this out, Creighton has filed an honest return and the Lehigh County Victory PAC/Party have as well at this point. But I did look at Creighton’s return. The Northwestern Press and Parkland Press were the only media to question a $500 contribution in the primary to his campaign. That came from the Lynn Township engineer. That is the township where Tom is supervisor and had to vote on retaining the engineer. We reported it. I got the story and ran with it as a paper should. It was an honest contribution from a personal friend of Tom but it deserved the public scrutiny that came, just as these latest contributions deserve scrutiny.
I also think we can’t dismiss Tom’s concerns that Jeanne McNeill’s husband is a career politician, recently embroiled in an ethics issue in Whitehall and a county employee. McNeill as commissioner would be in a check and balance position as to her husband’s ultimate boss. Nothing prohibits that but it could cause conflicts.
One public official, who I won’t identify, wrote to me “Also, the fact that Jeanie McNeill’s husband works for Don Cunningham in a plum political position should be brought out. How can Jeanie be a watchdog if the family's income comes from Don Cunningham. One of the decisions a new commissioner will have to make is whether Danny McNeil's job, and several other jobs, should be cut in order to bring the budget under control. Will a wife vote to cut her husband's job? “
Tom Creighton is trying to establish himself as the successor to Sterling Raber, a commissioner of few words. His response, like Raber’s comments at meetings, was short, concise and 100% on point.
He wrote:
“I talked to [someone] from voter registration last Thursday and she told me all I had to do was to put it in the mail. As long as it was postmarked on Thursday the 22nd.
Ken, It is hard to believe all the money that was given by big unions on my opponent's report”.
In the 5th District, Hillary Kwiatek responded to my questions and to fellow journalist Bernie O’Hare by saying:
“Since you both asked for this information, I'm replying with one email in the interest of consistency and full disclosure.
I can tell you about my particular situation. I received documentation of the state party's in-kind contribution -- the amount and description of the contributions -- mid-day on Friday the 23rd. My treasurer and I had completed our report and were headed to file soon after I got the email. At that time, I asked the person at the state party who sent me the information if I should file an amendment on Monday (today). Her response was basically that I could do that or I could wait until the 30-day post-election report.
In the interest of greater transparency, I opted to amend now rather than wait until after the election is over. My treasurer and I filed the necessary paperwork this afternoon. I assume they will post it along with the rest of my report online.
I want to say in the strongest terms possible that I would never intentionally deceive or mis-report information on these reports. I take the oath my signature represents on those forms very seriously, and my integrity means a great deal to me. The fact of the matter is, I simply didn't have the documentation of these contributions when my treasurer and I completed my report. As you realize, you cannot document an in-kind contribution without the necessary information. Once I received the information, the report was amended in as quick a manner as I could manage, given my treasurer's work schedule and the like.
Thank you for asking for my side of the story.”
Before the Kwiatek Committee amended its report, Glenn Eckhart had responded:
“ It is disappointing that Hillary and her friends would be so desperate to win this election that they would break the law to do it. I really feel sorry for them. I have never been opposed to people making campaign contributions and if Don wants to buy the seat he has every right to try and do so. But, they have to disclose where the money was coming from what I have learned is the Treasure of Hillary’s campaign and Hillary did not report an in kind contribution from the Democratic State Committee someone did this on purpose because I understand she knew about the mail pieces on her Facebook page. What is she hiding? Lets hope the voters see the facts and know that you may not agree with all my positions but at least you know I am independent and I cannot be bought and paid for.”
Republicans were a bit upset that Kwiatek mailers and, in fact, Daugherty’s press release attacked Eckhart for missing some budget hearings in past years. Truth is every budget hearing but the final one seems a bit pointless and is missed by a few members. But even more so, the whole process was pointless as Eckhart, Browning and Roman fought to cut spending and could not get the needed votes. I am not sure why they even had the charade of hearings and a parade of testimony (especially on the final night) when the vote results were known.
If Kwiatek wants to blast Eckhart for opposing spending, that is fair and a key issue in the campaign. If she wants to blast him for his stance on Allentown, fine. Voters can decide. However, the county commission is a part-time job and they all have conflicts from time to time. The TreeVitalize vote last November failed because at least 2 Democrats could not make the special Tuesday meeting.
So, as a few of the candidates said, let’s spend the next week looking at issues.
Does Creighton or McNeill better represent your views on spending? You decide.
Does McNeill’s husband being a county employee create a conflict? You decide.
Has Eckhart been too strict in his fiscal conservatism? You decide.
Do you support Cunningham’s pro-union stance or want a check and balance? You decide.
Does Kwiatek or Eckhart better represent your views on budget and spending and taxes? You decide. And to help you decide, all of the races are covered by me in the appropriate East Penn Press paper this week. Read the stories. See the responses to the questions we said would be asked.
This is an important election. Both sides are showing it by their contributions.
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