Pezzullo Blasts Pallone For Taking Money From Facebook

Rich Pezzullo

Rich Pezzullo, the Republican candidate for Congress in New Jersey’s 6th Congressional District, blasted Congressman Frank Pallone today for accepting $7000 in campaign contributions from facebook.

According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Pallone has received $7000 from facebook since 2010, including  $2,500 for this year’s election.

“Frank Pallone has taken $7,000 from Facebook since 2010,” Pezzullo marveled. “Seven thousand dollars,” he repeated, to a group of voters in Middlesex County. “And he has the gall to sit up there and claim he’s an unbiased observer, to claim he’s representing his district?” Read the rest of this entry »

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AG Lynch closes Clinton email investigation; Sonnek-Schmelz blasts special rules for powerful insiders

Brent Sonnek-Schmelz

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced this afternoon that she is closing the Hillary Clinton email investigation based upon the recommendation of FBI Director James Comey. “Late this afternoon, I met with FBI Director James Comey and career prosecutors and agents who conducted the investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s use of a personal email system during her time as Secretary of State,” Lynch said in a statement released on the Justice Department website.  “I received and accepted their unanimous recommendation that the thorough, year-long investigation be closed and that no charges be brought against any individuals within the scope of the investigation.”

Brent Sonnek-Schmelz, the business man running for Congress against 28 year incumbent Frank Pallone in the Monmouth/Middlesex 6th District, said that Clinton’s free pass is more than enough reason to clear out partisan political puppets, like Pallone, from both political parties.

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Sonnek-Schmelz: Pallone’s behavior is disgraceful

Congressman Frank Pallone sitting on the House floor. Photo via twitter

Brent Sonnek-Schmelz, the Republican candidate challenging Congressman Frank Pallone in New Jersey’s 6th District, called the 28 year incumbent’s behavior on the floor of the House of Representatives “disgraceful.”

“Frank’s right,” the challenger continued, “he does not have much to be proud about after 28 years.”

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The Democratic Laundromat: Wisniewski’s Washing and Spinning

By Harold Kane and Art Gallagher

The legal money laundering of Assemblyman John Wisniewski in Middlesex County has been in the news this month as Politickernj and The Star Ledger brought to light the how Middlesex Democrats are circumventing state and local pay to pay laws by having government vendors, primarily the Middlesex based CME engineering firm, fund campaigns through PACs when the campaign finance laws prohibited contributions directly to the campaigns in jurisdictions where they were earning large fees.

Wisniewski, of Sayreville, is the Chairman of the State Democratic Party and the Assembly Transportation Committee. 

Despite the fact that the PACs are run by his former staff members and fund campaigns in his district and county, Wisniewski says he has nothing to do with them.  If that is true, the State Democratic Committee needs a new chairman.  If it’s not true, the Democrats still should get a new chairman and the people of the 19^th legislative district should elect a new Assemblyman.

Also in the news this month are the guilty pleas of insurance broker Frank Gartland of Federal Hill Risk Management.  Gartland plead guilty to giving $2 million in bribes to Toms River School Superintendent Michael Ritacco, and to theft by deception and money laundering for bilking the Perth Amboy Board of Education, an Abbott district, out of more than $2 million.

Gartland also admitted to making illegal contributions to the campaigns of former Assemblyman and former Perth Amboy Mayor Joe Vas through “straw” contributors.  Vas is now serving a 6 ½  year sentence for funneling illegal money from a real estate scheme into his unsuccessful 2006 congressional campaign.  Vas was Wisniewski’s running mate and they represented the 19^th district together in the Assembly from 2004-2009.

While all of this bribery, stealing and money laundering was going on, Gartland and his associates were also donating heavily to the Middlesex County PACS that Wisniewski says he has nothing to do with.

Wisniewski and Port Authority Deputy Executive Director Bill Baroni, a former Republican State Senator, got into it this week over the PACS and Wisniewski using his authority as chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee to issue subpoenas requiring that Port Authority executives appear before his committee.  Baroni accused Wisniewski of a “shakedown” because CME did not receive preferential treatment while pitching their engineering services to Port Authority.

In response, Wisniewski said “the truth is an expendable commodity” for the “Christie character assassination team”

Let’s see some truth from Wisniewski regarding these PACS, including what quid pro quo Gartland received for his “contributions.”

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The Folly Of Campaign Finance Laws

Over the holiday weekend Politickernj and The Star Ledger  caught up with the good work that MMM contributor Harold Kane did last September in shedding light on political spending in Middlesex County.

Like Kane, Politikernj and The Star Ledger framed their articles as if the PACs set up to funnel campaign donations from engineers, lawyers and their firms to political campaigns were doing something scandalous.   Each of the articles acknowledges that the contributions are legal, yet they say that the donors “skirt” or “cloud” the law or that the contributors are “buying” the candidates that ultimately benefit from the contributions.

The real scandal is that campaign finance laws at every level of government, federal, state, county and local, that are ostensibly designed to eliminate the influence of money in our political system and to increase transparency actually have the opposite effect, by design.

Money is like air and water.  Set up a structure to restrict it and money, like air and water, will find a crack in the structure to get to where it wants to go.  With enough pressure the structure breaks.  Fix or reform the structure and the cycle repeats itself.

Our campaign finance laws decrease transparency in the process.  Kane and the reporters from Politickernj and The Star Ledger spent many unproductive hours combing through ELEC reports of campaigns and PACS to connect the dots.  Not many people have the time or resources to make that effort.  Kane, Politickernj and The Star Ledger reporters did us all a service by connecting those dots.  It is appropriate for the public to know who is financing the campaigns of their candidates for public office.

Restricting the amount of money that a person or entity can contribute to a campaign is inappropriate.  Such restrictions are impediments to free speech and push otherwise well meaning people out of the political process or into breaking ill conceived and complex laws.  Such restrictions don’t and won’t keep “bad money” out of the process.

The only way to increase transparency in the process is to require immediate disclosure of campaign contributions. Removing the limits that candidates and campaigns can accept would reduce the utility of PAC, Super PACs, etc. 

Creating a simple system of full disclosure would increase participation in the political process.  It would increase competition among government contractors and professionals.  It would make the entire process more democratic, which is probably why we won’t see such a simple system anytime soon, if ever.

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