A candidate for governor “shall not accept contributions totaling more than $2,000 from a single source, political committee or political party in any two-year general election cycle.”  17 V.S.A. §2805(a).

A “related campaign expenditure made on a candidate’s behalf shall be considered a contribution to the candidate on whose behalf it was made.”  Vt. Stat. §2809(a).  “Related campaign expenditure made on the candidate’s behalf” means “any expenditure intended to promote the election of a specific candidate … if intentionally facilitated by, solicited by or approved by the candidate or the candidate’s political committee.”  17 V.S.A. §2809(c).

“If it was illegal, we wouldn’t have done it,” Dubie campaign manager Corry Bliss

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As Sam Hemingway reported yesterday, the Dubie campaign seems to be engaging in campaign money laundering that is in violation of campaign finance laws:

The evidence Assistant Attorney General Michael) McShane is studying includes a 260-page document filed recently by the Republican Governors Association with the Internal Revenue Service showing an in-kind contribution Sept. 22 from Friends of Brian Dubie valued at $25,500 and identified as “polling.”

Papers on file at the Vermont Secretary of State’s Office show that Friends of Brian Dubie, the name of Dubie’s campaign organization, paid $25,500 for a poll Sept. 27.

Under state campaign-finance law, political entities can spend unlimited amounts of money on behalf of a candidate so long as they do not coordinate what they’re doing with the candidate’s campaign. If the activity fits the coordination definition, spending is limited to $6,000 per election cycle.

This is not, as he says a “new” issue, but rather a re-opening of the matter of routine illegal campaign contributions from the RGA to the Dubie campaign, originally broached regarding this Republican Governor’s Association advertisement in a complaint since rejected by the Attorney General. The new information was simply too much for the AG’s office to ignore – even after their irresponsible and legally reckless dismissal of the complaint initially.

Why was the original dismissal irresponsible? It’s quite simple, actually. An appropriate entity can make its own expenditures in an election season. If that entity coordinates with a specific political campaign, it becomes an agent of that campaign directly, and its work on behalf of the candidate – in kind or otherwise – is therefore a contribution. And as a contribution, it’s subject to campaign contribution limits.

Anyone paying any attention to the RGA ad at all can tell it coordinated with the Dubie campaign? Why? Because its obviously staged. Dubie is clearly being directed, in an ad produced by the RGA for upwards of $30,000. Hence, a violation, and a significant one. Not a technicality, not some legalistic interpretation, a direct and flagrant violation. The evidence after the flip.

Here’s a link to the ad. If you haven’t yet watched it, take a look. It doesn’t simply have static images or news clips of Dubie. It’s a slickly produced bit with scenes showcasing the candidate – scenes which only a moron would suggest weren’t directed, quite frankly. The RGA claims to have collected the footage used by following Dubie around at public events.

The ad was shot on AUgust 14th of this year (which is when Dubie’s Facebook page placed him at Jay Peak – Jay Peak owner Bill Stenger appears in photos from the day and is in the same clothes as in the ad). Scenes were taped at the Jay Peak Ice Haus facility and the ice rink.

Her’s the thing: Dubie’s calendar made no announcement of any public event at Jay Peak at the time. A campaign website blog post the day before the shoot refers to an upcoming stop at Jay Peak, but there was no schedule or press release indicating when – and yet somehow, the professional camera crew knew precisely when to be there.

Now let’s look atthe ad. Obviously, as these screen shots indicate, the camera was right there at Brian Dubie’s side:

He doesn’t seem all that concerned about who these guys with the camera in his face are, does he?

And this looks pretty private for a “public” event that the RGA cameras were following him around on. He’s speaking to a businessperson privately in their place of business – and apparently the two of them are the only ones in the room:

It was an insult to the Attorney General’s intelligence to suggest that, in this case, Dubie would just let some anonymous professional cameraman follow him into such a meeting if he didn’t knowexactly who they were and exactly what they were doing. The camera is positioned behind the counter for a framed shot. Clearly staged, and clearly both knew what they were doing.

Here is another from the same ad:

Still not enough for you? Then get a load of this:

Dubie’s going to sit in a small circle of kids with a professional camera right there in the circle with him, face to face with a little girl – and he’s going to stand for this if he doesn’t know exactly who they are? If that’s true, just think for a minute how creepy and reckless of him that would be.

And it’s bunk. Once again, this is no shot froma crowd at a public event. He knows who the cameraman is, and that makes it corrdination, which makes it illegal.

And Dubie – once again, has chosen to simply lie and lie and lie about it, over and over again. The guy is truly shameless.

So where did the Dems go wrong with the initial complaint? Well, first of all the AG had no business dismissing it in the first place, but the complaint made it easy. Politically, it didn’t even register among the public because the complaint and the announcement of the complaint were made on the precise day everyone knew the primary recount would be completed. This guaranteed that the story would get second billing in he papers at best, and that it wouldn’t be what anyone was talking about at the water coolers that day (or the next day, which was Saturday when no one pays attention to the news). That was a shockingly amateur mistake, and may be an example of Senator Shumlin’s legendary impulsiveness getting in his way. If they’d waited 3 days, this could’ve created solid buzz.

But also, the complaint depended on a leak from a witness, who anonymously reported that he saw Dubie at Jay Peak during this day outside a private reception with a full camera crew. The witness reports seeing Dubie leave with the camera crew amidst a fleet of SUVs. The pictures seem to corroborate this. From the facebook link:

Again – a private reception, not on the calendar, that a fleet of RGA SUVs knew to be at.

But the problem is that the witness was never going to come forward, clearly. The complaint hung its case on the witness who wasn’t going to step forward – which made the case flimsily, allowing it to be dismissed for lack of evidence. Instead, the complaint should have focused on a screen-by-screen examination (as I’m doing) which would have provided enough evidence for an investigation involving sworn depositions.

Find out who these people are and get them under oath – then we’d have all the answers quickly. No doubt not all of them can lie about it as easily and casually as our Lieutenant Governor.

Then there’s the matter of the RGA’s record in this business. They’ve been nailed for this sort of violation repeatedly: in Alaska, Texas, and even right here in Vermont in 2004!! (Hemingway, “GOP ads ordered off the air”, Burlington Free Press, 10/29/2004 – no link available) for example. These guys have a rap sheet. They are repeat offenders. That matters.

None of this even gets into the question of Jim Douglas himself, who narrates the ad and was quite active in the Dubie campaign at the time (he headlined a fundraising event on August 20th – just days after the shoot). Jim DOuglas (who also appears in the ad) seems to personify the revolving door between the RGA and the campaign.

So there was a violation, clearly. Dismissing the complaint was practically an act of malpractice by the AG’s office and refusing to meaningfully investigate and examine the evidence was an act of irresponsibility by the Vermont press.

But this new issue has reinvigorated the issue, giving the AG and the press corps a second chance – and giving the public another opportunity to find out about the illegal activities of the Dubie campaign before they go to the polls.