MYSTERY SUPER PAC MAY HAVE VIOLATED ELECTION LAW
By Gregory Korte and Fredreka Schouten
USA TODAY
Updated 4d 10h ago
WASHINGTON – Four days before Ohio’s primary election, Democratic
voters in the 2nd Congressional District received a blitz of automated
telephone calls supporting William R. Smith, a candidate who didn’t
campaign, raised no money and gave no media interviews before the
election.
On election night, Smith won by 59 votes against a well-known, better
funded and harder working candidate who had the endorsement of major
Democratic groups.
So who gets credit for helping Smith secure the Democratic nomination
to Congress? No one knows.
The “Victory Ohio Super PAC” claimed credit for the “robocalls,”
but it is not registered with the Federal Election Commission and
hasn’t disclosed any contributions or spending to federal regulators.
Campaign-finance experts say the group probably has violated federal
election law. Under federal rules, groups must report last-minute
activity to the FEC if they spend more than $1,000 on automated calls,
mailings or advertising that directly advocate the election or defeat
of a federal candidate. Such spending must be reported within 24 hours.
“This activity does require disclosure,” said Kenneth Gross, a former
Federal Election Commission official and a leading campaign-finance
lawyer in Washington.
Smith now faces Cincinnati podiatrist and Army Reserve Lt. Col. Brad
Wenstrup, who pulled off an upset of his own against four-term Rep.
Jean Schmidt.
Wenstrup got a boost from conservative anti-tax groups and a legally
registered super PAC, the Campaign for Primary Accountability, which
is working to defeat congressional incumbents in several states. The
group reported spending $66,836 against Schmidt in the week before
the election.
A 61-year-old former postal worker from the small town of Waverly,
Smith says he made less than $15,000 last year driving a truck. His
reasons for running are a “long complicated story,” he said.
His issues: the mistreatment of veterans by the Department of Veterans
Affairs, tighter regulation of the mortgage industry, and federal
rules on how long truckers can drive before they have to rest. All,
he said, are informed by his family’s own experiences.
“If you had to produce a prototype for the absolute common man,
that’s what you get. He drives a truck. He lives with his mother,” said
Blaine Beekman, a Pike County commissioner who helped circulate Smith’s
nominating petitions. “People call him the ‘mystery candidate.’ He’s
really the impossible candidate.”
Victory Ohio “clearly exists somewhere, because it spent a lot
of money,” Beekman said. But he said he has no idea who it could
be. “To be frank with you, there’s no one in Pike County that would
have the money to do these things. We have the highest unemployment
rate in Ohio.”
Smith defeated David Krikorian, a three-time candidate who ran with
the endorsement of major Democratic groups in the district.
Krikorian’s campaign spent $64,356, according to the FEC, though he
said only about $5,000 of that was for the current election cycle.
Krikorian has a longstanding feud with Schmidt over her support from
Turkish causes. Krikorian, an ethnic Armenian, has accused Schmidt
of denying the Armenian genocide during and after World War I, and
their battles escalated into a $6.8 million libel suit by Schmidt
still pending in Ohio courts.
Her legal fees – about $500,000 – were paid by Turkish interests,
which led to a House Ethics Committee investigation because she
failed to disclose the source. The committee ordered her to repay
the money but didn’t sanction her because the panel concluded she did
“not knowingly” violate ethics rules that prevent such gift-giving.
One version of the robocall took aim at Krikorian: “William Smith has
an opponent that describes himself as a Reagan conservative. … Please
don’t make a mistake and embarrass the party. Vote for William Smith,
the real Democrat for Congress.”
The recorded call ended with the disclosure, “This has been paid for
by the Victory Ohio Super PAC.” Neither the FEC nor Ohio’s Secretary
of State have any record of such a group. A call receipient’s caller ID
system generated a non-working phone number from the Cleveland suburbs.
“Honestly, the more I think about this, the more mysterious it
becomes. Something is fishy,” said Clermont County Democratic Chairman
David Lane.
“Robocalls are pretty cheap, but they did enough of them I have a
hard time believing they spent less than $1,000,” said Caleb Faux,
the director of the Hamilton County Democratic Party who, like Lane,
has never met Smith. ” Who are they, what is their motivation, where
did their money come from?”
Republicans agree. “If a Republican did it, I don’t know about it,”
said Alex Triantafilou, the GOP chairman in Hamilton County. “Somebody
should put a stop to it. That kind of thing should not occur in
politics. Transparency is crucial. I hope someone fully investigates
it.”
Paul Ryan, a lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center watchdog group,
said the group broke the rules if it spent more than $1,000.
“Ohio voters seemingly had no information about who was trying to
influence their election with last-minute robocalls,” Ryan said. “Ohio
voters deserve that information.”
Smith told USA TODAY that he’s as surprised as anyone that he won,
but he credits the robocalls – and perhaps his prayers. In only his
second media interview, he said he doesn’t know the source of the
help but suspects Republicans who “were looking at my inactivity and
my access to no funding” and figured he was less of a threat to the
Republican nominee.
“Whatever the source of that is, I’ll take it,” he said.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-03-09/william-smith-ohio-super-PAC/53439752/1