NJ ELEC needs to improve its service to the citizens of New Jersey
By Harold V. Kane
Harold V. Kane
The print and electronic media have, since last September, shone a spotlight on the Middlesex County Democrats fundraising activities. The Democrats established a number of Political Action Committees designed to subvert the 2006 changes to the NJ election finance laws. The question arises-why did they think that they could get away with it, when all contributions are reported to the NJ Election Law Enforcement Commission. One answer could be because of a flaw in the ELEC computer program. The ELEC program is, at best, difficult to use. However once persons making queries understands how the programs work, then they also determine that all contributions and expenditures are there, somewhere. Even the administrators/treasurers for the Democrat PACs dutifully complied with the reporting requirements.
The ELEC reporting program offers a category of “Simple Search by Contributor”. When a user clicks on this category a page opens that states: “The Simple Search will search the campaign finance database for a contributor to campaigns, Political Party Committees, Legislative Leadership Committees and Political Action Committees.” Except that it doesn’t!
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Posted: May 5th, 2012 | Author: admin | Filed under: Harold Kane | Tags: Campaign Cash, Campaign Finance, CME, CME Engineering, ELEC, Harold V. Kane, Jay Cornell, Middlesex County Democrats, New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission | Comments Off on ELEC Reporting Lacks Transparency
By Harold V. Kane, Monroe Township
It is no secret in Middlesex County that the Middlesex County Democrat Organization never seems to have problems raising money for political campaigns. What is strange is who some of the donors are. Did you ever hear of Citizens for a Green Environment, Women for Good Government, or the Coalition for Government Efficiency. These three groups are political action committees that support Democrats exclusively. One has to ask where their funds come from Are tree huggers, feminists, and efficiency experts so interested in electoral activity that they are willing to donate huge sums to their respective groups. The answer is of course NOT!
These three groups are among 12(list below) that the Democrats established for scrutiny-avoidance so that large sums of money could be contributed but not readily made available for review. The key to this type of operation is the difference in the contribution level that may be given to an individual candidate versus to PAC. The maximum that a single person or organization can make to candidate’s committee is $2,600 per election. However, the maximum that can be made to a PAC is $7,200 per election. If a donor wants to contribute large sums to a candidate or series of candidates, the easiest way is to contribute to PACs and let the PACs distribute the money. This is what happens in Middlesex County.
Since January of 2008 up to August of 2011, the PACs controlled by the Middlesex County Democrats have accepted $1,715,264 from various contributors with $621,000 (36%) coming from the five principals ( David Samuel, John Stefani, Jay Cornell, Michael McClelland, and Gregory Valesi) of CME Associates of Sayreville. This does not include the $250,000 that the CME principals contributed to various candidate committees. In total the CME principals contributed $854,550 to the Democrats and a paltry $17,550 to the Republicans for a total of $872,100 during this 3.5 year period.
Obviously CME was not alone. Second on the donor hit parade was T&M Associates of Middletown, third was the Gartland Family of Companies of Baltimore and fourth was Federal Business Centers of Edison. The citizens of Middlesex County have gotten a partial reprieve from these clandestine activities. Francis Gartland, the scion of the Gartland family of companies, has pled guilty to bribing a public official in Ocean County. This should keep the Gartland check book closed, at least for a while.
You must be wondering how this massive scrutiny-avoidance can happen. The Democrats are exploiting a fault in the NJ Election Law Enforcement Commission computer system. The fault precludes a standard name query from extracting contributor names that gave to PACs. The information is available, but is not overly easy to find.
| Democrat scrutiny-avoidance Organizations |
|
|
|
| From Jan. 1 2008 to August 1, 2011 |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| PAC |
Total Contr. |
CME Amount |
CME % |
| |
|
|
|
| Coalition for Government Efficiency |
$130,350.00 |
$50,000.00 |
38.00% |
| Box 263, Eatontown |
|
|
|
| Democracy in Motion PAC |
$189,716.00 |
$65,000.00 |
34.00% |
| 12 Deerfield Road, Sayreville |
|
|
|
| New Expectations PAC |
$196,066.00 |
$60,000.00 |
30.00% |
| 2 Lincoln Highway, ste 511, Edison |
|
|
|
| Cmte for Efficiency in Government PAC |
$38,500.00 |
$26,000.00 |
67.00% |
| 11 Barton Road, Mountain Lakes |
|
|
|
| Women for Good Government PAC |
$238,616.00 |
$75,000.00 |
32.00% |
| 250 George St, New Brunswick |
|
|
|
| Raritan Bay Leadership Fund |
$203,466.00 |
$77,500.00 |
38.00% |
| 251 Livingston Avenue, New Brunswick |
|
|
|
| Committee for Civic Responsibility |
$222,450.00 |
$70,000.00 |
31.00% |
| 68 Old Road, Princeton |
|
|
|
| People Energizing Government PAC |
$136,900.00 |
$50,200.00 |
37.00% |
| 105 Morristown Road, ste 105, Bernardsville |
|
|
|
| Higher Point Leadership |
$59,300.00 |
$28,000.00 |
47.00% |
| 1377 Main Street, Millstone Borough |
|
|
|
| Citizens for Green Environment |
$119,350.00 |
$60,000.00 |
50.00% |
| 1102 Hazelwood Avenue, Middlesex Borough |
|
|
|
| Bergen County Young Democrats |
$35,900.00 |
$8,500.00 |
24.00% |
| 14 Brinkerhoff Avenue, Teaneck |
|
|
|
| 19th District Democratic Leadership Fund |
$144,650.00 |
$51,000.00 |
35.00% |
| 13 Zalewski Drive, Sayreville |
|
|
|
| |
$1,715,264.00 |
$621,200.00 |
36% avg |
|
CME
|
$621,200.00
|
|
T & M Associates
|
$167,500.00
|
|
Gartland – Federal Hill Risk Management
|
$95,864.00
|
|
Federal Business Centers
|
$85,700.00
|
|
Richard Alaimo
|
$77,700.00
|
|
EPIC
|
$66,300.00
|
|
Houdlik & Morrison
|
$47,300.00
|
|
Feist Engineering
|
$46,600.00
|
|
Remington Vernick
|
$46,400.00
|
|
NAIK Consulting
|
$31,800.00
|
|
Shain, Schaefer, and Raffanello
|
$29,500.00
|
|
Omar Boraie
|
$17,700.00
|
|
Martin Murphy
|
$16,000.00
|
|
Larry Berger
|
$15,500.00
|
|
Golden, Rothschild, et al
|
$15,000.00
|
|
Omland Corp
|
$15,000.00
|
|
Klein Advertising
|
$14,400.00
|
|
Eric Bernstein – attorney
|
$13,200.00
|
|
Lori Dvorak – attorney
|
$11,400.00
|
|
Hoagland, Longo, Moran
|
$11,200.00
|
|
Dwyer, Connell – attorneys
|
$10,500.00
|
|
Michael J. Stone – attorney
|
$10,500.00
|
|
Elaine Flynn
|
$10,000.00
|
|
William Flynn – attorney
|
$9,000.00
|
|
Najarian Assoc
|
$7,750.00
|
|
David Klein
|
$7,200.00
|
|
Hatch Mott McDonald
|
$7,200.00
|
|
R3M Engineering
|
$7,200.00
|
|
Higher Point Leadership
|
$7,000.00
|
|
Paul Weiner
|
$6,250.00
|
|
Borrus, Foley, Golden
|
$6,000.00
|
|
Adams, Rehman, and Heggan
|
$5,000.00
|
|
Bowman and Company
|
$5,000.00
|
|
Carpenters Union
|
$5,000.00
|
|
Laborers Union
|
$5,000.00
|
|
McManimon and Scotland – attorneys
|
$5,000.00
|
|
Robert Paulus
|
$5,000.00
|
|
John Parker – attorney
|
$4,250.00
|
|
BGIA
|
$4,000.00
|
|
Dennis Enright
|
$4,000.00
|
|
Bill Neary for Mayor
|
$3,500.00
|
|
J. Kane – attorney
|
$3,500.00
|
|
Bayshore
|
$3,000.00
|
|
Charles Carley
|
$3,000.00
|
|
Concetta Gerbi
|
$3,000.00
|
|
Neglia Engineering
|
$3,000.00
|
|
Robert Morrison
|
$3,000.00
|
|
Nicholas Rentas
|
$2,600.00
|
|
Realty Management Associates
|
$2,600.00
|
|
Aforce
|
$2,500.00
|
|
Convery, Convery, Shihar
|
$2,500.00
|
|
JH Reid
|
$2,500.00
|
|
MBI Gluckshaw
|
$2,500.00
|
|
Harris Realty
|
$2,000.00
|
|
John McManus
|
$2,000.00
|
|
MK Management
|
$2,000.00
|
|
Carr Eng.
|
$1,750.00
|
|
Grand Sanitation
|
$1,700.00
|
|
Aforce
|
$1,500.00
|
|
Francisco Taddeo
|
$1,500.00
|
|
Middlesex Medical Group
|
$1,500.00
|
|
Bayshore Recycling
|
$1,250.00
|
|
Lawrence Sacks – attorney
|
$1,250.00
|
|
Raymond Lesniak
|
$1,250.00
|
|
Albany Street Plaza
|
$1,000.00
|
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Cahn and Parra – attorneys
|
$1,000.00
|
|
Christine Grippo
|
$1,000.00
|
|
Elite Auto group
|
$1,000.00
|
|
John Kwasnik – attorney
|
$1,000.00
|
|
K-Land #11
|
$1,000.00
|
|
Lanzo and Son
|
$1,000.00
|
|
Old Castle Pipe
|
$1,000.00
|
|
multiple small contributors
|
$76,250.00
|
|
|
$1,715,264.00
|
Posted: September 13th, 2011 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: CME Associates, Harold V. Kane, Middlesex County Democrats | Tags: CME, Harold V. Kane, Middlesex County Democrats | 10 Comments »
