Coleman has a Long Record of Not Complying with Campaign Finance Disclosure laws
St. Paul - The Campaign for St. Paul's Future today repeated its demand that Chris Coleman's campaign disclose and return all contributions received from the St. Paul DFL. The St. Paul DFL is paying for and producing lawn-signs that are potentially illegally coordinated with Chris Coleman's campaign.
Based on comments from Chris Coleman's campaign, the Campaign for St. Paul's Future will unfortunately have to contemplate filing complaints with the appropriate governing authority to force Chris Coleman's campaign and the St. Paul DFL, to abide by Ramsey County and St. Paul's campaign finance and election laws. An official announcement on the filing of complaints will come later this week.
Chris Coleman was endorsed by the St. Paul DFL on April 30, 2005. Since once receiving their endorsement, Coleman's campaign began coordinating campaign expenditures such as lawn-signs with the St. Paul DFL. Because the St. Paul DFL did not file the legally required Pre-Primary Report due on September 2, 2005, it is impossible to determine if the St. Paul DFL has exceeded the contribution limit to Coleman's campaign.
"Chris Coleman's campaign's flippant response to requests that they disclose the amount of contributions they have received from the St. Paul DFL shows an unbelievable amount of contempt for campaign finance disclosure laws," said Campaign for St. Paul's Future spokesman Michael Brodkorb.
According to the Ramsey County election office and information from media reports, the St. Paul DFL has still not and will not file the legally required campaign finance disclosure reports for the past seven years. The St. Paul DFL last filed their reports with the Ramsey County election office on February 2, 1998, which covered the period of January 1 to December 31, 1997.
"The St. Paul DFL must have learned how to evade filing campaign finance disclosure forms from Chris Coleman, who has a long-history of not filing his campaign’s reports in a timely manner," said Brodkorb. "After reviewing Chris Coleman's past city council and Coleman's 2000 congressional campaign forms, it's clear Coleman has never had an interest in disclosing to the public how his campaigns are financed," added Brodkorb.
According to public information available from the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), Chris Coleman's congressional campaign was notified on seven different occasions of the committee's failure to file the legally required campaign finance disclosure forms. On ten different occasions the committee was notified by the FEC that reports filed by Coleman's campaign did not provide the legally required information.
Chris Coleman's city council campaign also failed to file timely and accurate reports during Coleman's tenure as a St. Paul City Council member.
"The Campaign for St. Paul's Future is proud of the role it has played in uncovering a massive hole in campaign finance disclosure laws," said Brodkorb. "It's appalling that the St. Paul DFL refuses to comply with campaign finance disclosure laws even after being informed by Ramsey County election officials of their legal obligation to disclose the committee's financials for the last seven years."
The Committee 2 Recall Randy.org responded to yesterday's demand by the Campaign for St. Paul's Future by agreeing to file the committee’s campaign finance disclosure forms today.
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