Federal election law requires every Congressional candidate to fully disclose the name, address, occupation and employer of every donor who gives more than $200 to their campaign. I just browsed through the campaign finance reports for Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones, as tallied by the Center for Responsive Politics. As of January 4th, guess which Ohio member of Congress is the most secretive about her donors' identities?
| Degree of disclosure: | |||
| Full | Incomplete | None | |
| Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D) | $118,517 | $550 | $84,851 |
| 58% | 0% | 42% | |
| Michael R. Turner (R) | $394,100 | $3,250 | $128,001 |
| 75% | 1% | 24% | |
| Steve Chabot (R) | $262,337 | $2,800 | $29,150 |
| 89% | 1% | 10% | |
| Paul E. Gillmor (R) | $74,969 | $500 | $11,200 |
| 87% | 1% | 13% | |
| Dennis J. Kucinich (D) | $2,329,363 | $11,100 | $216,918 |
| 91% | 0% | 8% | |
| Tim Ryan (D) | $114,982 | $4,500 | $9,100 |
| 89% | 3% | 7% | |
| Patrick J. Tiberi (R) | $633,495 | $0 | $40,961 |
| 94% | 0% | 6% | |
| Steven C. LaTourette (R) | $998,177 | $0 | $48,250 |
| 95% | 0% | 5% | |
| Rob Portman (R) | $1,250,997 | $3,400 | $48,430 |
| 96% | 0% | 4% | |
| Dave Hobson (R) | $942,224 | $0 | $17,180 |
| 98% | 0% | 2% | |
| Sherrod Brown (D) | $425,218 | $2,000 | $8,450 |
| 98% | 0% | 2% | |
| Ted Strickland (D) | $59,632 | $0 | $950 |
| 98% | 0% | 2% | |
| Bob Ney (R) | $493,365 | $6,000 | $7,500 |
| 97% | 1% | 1% | |
| Ralph Regula (R) | $294,136 | $4,000 | $2,150 |
| 98% | 1% | 1% | |
| John Boehner (R) | $599,981 | $1,600 | $2,500 |
| 99% | 0% | 0% | |
| Michael G. Oxley (R) | $604,830 | $0 | $2,500 |
| 100% | 0% | 0% | |
| Deborah Pryce (R) | $352,085 | $3,769 | $800 |
| 99% | 1% | 0% | |
| Marcy Kaptur (D) | $135,575 | $500 | $0 |
| 100% | 0% | 0% | |
Stephanie Tubbs Jones ran unopposed this year, which might explain her apparent belief that nobody's going to look into her finances. Either she's hiding something or she's just unusually lax in complying with disclosure laws. Which is it?
And please, Miss Jones, don't insult our intelligence by blaming your staff for this.
You cannot expect a Demorat to play by the same rules of fairness they demand from Rrepublicans, can you?
There may be something more to all of this.
I can just see the Congresswoman complaining of an investigation into her campaign financing - "it is all motivated by the corrupt Bush Administration - first they stole the Ohio election and now they are coming after me"
Seems to me that sort of defense has been used before?
Sounds like something a Democrat would say. I'll keep pulling at loose threads to see what happens.