Today’s Mystery

SafeRoadsYes! Has A Phantom Contributor

Mystery Money

Today was the deadline for the last campaign finance filings with the Michigan Secretary of State before the May 5th vote on Proposal 1. SafeRoadsYes! filed five late contribution reports and a pre-special general report. Contributions supporting Proposal 1 now exceed $ 8 million and, as you might expect, the roster of SafeRoadsYes! contributors reads like a Michigan road constructors’ directory. SafeRoadsYes! expenditures now exceed $ 7.2 million, and SafeRoadsYes! still has more than $ 843,000 yet to be spent.  Of course there may be massive contributions yet to be made which would not be reported until after the election.

MGM Grand Casino and FireKeepers Casino contributed $ 50,000 each, presumably to curry favor with the Lansing power elites. BlueCross/Blue Shield and the Michigan Township Association each threw in $ 100,000 which was picked from your pockets by ObamaCare and your property taxes, respectively. Dick DeVos, after having his stooge knife Representative Gamrat for not supporting Proposal 1, got in late with a $ 50,000 contribution from his Alticor investment group.

Powering the Economy SRY Late Contribution Report 4-24-15There is one phantom entity in the SafeRoadsYes! late contribution reports which is worth investigating. An organization called ‘Powering the Economy’ gave $ 75,000 on 22 April. The problem here? ‘Powering the Economy’ doesn’t exist in either the Michigan LARA corporate database or the Secretary of State’s searchable PAC database. So who are they?

Best guess, the merry screw ups at the Detroit Regional Chamber have created a new ballot question PAC to replace their recently terminated – and heavily cited – ‘Detroit Regional Chamber PAC II‘ ballot question PAC. DRC PAC II earned eighteen citations from the SoS since 2013 for filing screw ups. DRC PAC II filed a dissolution notice on 02 April and paid the $ 875.00 dissolution fee on 07 April. ‘Powering the Economy’ has the same address as the Detroit Regional Chamber, One Woodward Avenue in Detroit – which used to be known as the MichCon or ANR Building before Dan Gilbert bought it. And DRC has trademarked ‘Powering the Economy’ as one of their signature catch phrases.

Somebody is ignoring Michigan’s campaign finance laws. Not just ignoring them, trampling them. But this has been a routine practice during the Proposal 1 proponents’ campaign. Our Attorney General is supposed to enforce these laws, but he hasn’t been exactly active on this front despite Schuette ostensibly opposing Proposal 1. So all we can do at this late date is tell you about another scam behind Proposal 1 and let you spike this dragon at the ballot box. Sweet revenge is $ 9 million of your opponents’ money down the drain. Vote May 5th.

You Betcha! (20)Nuh Uh.(0)

  5 comments for “Today’s Mystery

  1. David Yardley
    April 24, 2015 at 5:35 pm

    Powering the Economy is the Detroit Chamber.. see #95 on this list http://www.mcfn.org/uploads/documents/PAC150_Jul14.pdf

    You Betcha! (4)Nuh Uh.(0)
    • David Yardley
      April 24, 2015 at 5:36 pm

      Ooops #96

      You Betcha! (3)Nuh Uh.(0)
  2. Corinthian Scales
    April 24, 2015 at 5:44 pm

    Ah. There it is! There is why Dick and Betsy's cupcake who has a lengthy history of dabbling in campaign finance law, did not use the Wooden Shoe Mafia's vast resources to press Ruth if you watch here beginning here @ 19:25

    And, being this epic disaster that is called Proposal 1 is allegedly about MDOT, which encompasses the CSX Transportation railway, when 'ol Doug was out pimping the DRIC Bridge, it wasn't so much about the damn bridge as much as it was all about the tunnel part for the crap from China at the Halifax Port link.

    You Betcha! (8)Nuh Uh.(0)
  3. 10x25MM
    April 24, 2015 at 6:18 pm

    Found them. The Secretary of State does not list them as a PAC, just a committee. So the SoS database needs a little work:

    http://miboecfr.nicusa.com/cgi-bin/cfr/com_det.cgi?com_id=516740

    Only two citations, so DRC is getting better.

    You Betcha! (3)Nuh Uh.(0)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *