Missing ethics disclosures while election underway

A week before the North Carolina 2018 primary election day about one in six candidates had not filed state ethics disclosures required of them since a March 12th deadline. While election day is May 8th, voting has been underway since absentee ballots were first made available March 29th. Voters have been deprived of legally required ethics information in one out of three state primary contests and almost half of the NC House primaries.

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Ralph Hise report raises more questions

A campaign finance report filed by the Ralph Hise for NC Senate Committee in August contains inconsistencies that compound previous discrepancies yet to be properly addressed by Hise.

The mid-year semi-annual report for the period January through June of 2017 was submitted by Ralph Hise’s newest treasurer, Amy B Ellis, CPA. Ellis took over in May after the irregularities in Hise’s campaign finances were the subject of a complaint  and follow-up by this author to the NC State Board of Elections.

More Ralph Hise campaign finance questions

The Ralph Hise for NC Senate Committee  has not reported a number of contributions, amounting to $9,700, that have been reported by various Political Action Committees (PACs) as having been made to the campaign committee of State Senator Ralph Hise. Also, the Hise committee reported a $1,500.00 “refund” from “University of NC” for a payment that was never recorded, making it an impermissible contribution from UNC. Today I filed an amendment to my complaint to the State Board of Elections to include these anomalies. 

Ralph Hise campaign overpays him $10,000 in loan repayments

State Senator Ralph Hise appears to have received over $10,000 more in loan repayments from his campaign committee than the total amount of loans he has made to the committee. Since the formation of the Ralph Hise for NC Senate Committee in 2009 campaign finance records show evidence of 17 personal loans from Ralph E Hise Jr totaling $50,694.37, and evidence of 39 loan repayments totaling $61,020.98, an excess of $10,326.61. Earlier today I filed a complaint with the State Board of Elections regarding this, and other apparent irregularities.

Who’s been buttering Barefoot’s bread?

When Chad Barefoot quit his day job as Skip Stam’s assistant to run for a custom-made State Senate seat, he landed on his feet with a job at the political consulting firm of connected Republican Frank Williams. Campaign finance records show that about that time Stam’s campaign committee started paying a regular fee of $4,333.33 for “campaign consulting” to Williams’ firm Pioneer Strategies spaced about every month until Barefoot was elected. Beginning January 2012 there were 10 payments of $4,333.22 and one final payment of $8,666.66 on 10/17/12 for a total of $51,999.99. Barefoot’s campaign had the help of a lot of direct and indirect money, as thoroughly detailed by the Independent weekly, and he was elected that November.

Campaign finance records don’t show that the veteran politician Stam had ever hired Pioneer Strategies before 2012, or after, or that he ever paid such sums for “campaign consulting”. The closest that Stam’s records show is a one-time $4,200 in 2006 to JN Dollar for “mail service” and several payments totaling about $10,000 in 2000 to JN Dollar for “radio ads”. In addition there was one 2012 payment $1,500 to Pioneer Strategies for “website redesign”. You’d have thought that $52,000 for “campaign consulting” might include a website design, especially as Skip Stam is more likely to be giving campaign advice than receiving it. The coincidence of payments may not amount to a smoking gun, but there’s enough bad optics to raise eyebrows more than shot of botox could.

Neal Hunt’s illegal email

Here’s copy of the Neal Hunt News edition using state resources paid for by North Carolina taxpayers, including these nuggets:

Obama is claiming Romney is just some rich guy who favors the rich.

So please support your fiscally responsible, conservative NC House or NC Senate members in the upcoming elections. In addition to your vote, we all need any other help you can provide such as holding a sign at the polls on election day or an early voting site, and putting a yard sign in your yard and/or a bumper sticker on your car.

In addition to the Governor’s race, there is one other statewide race that is of critical importance. That race is for the Supreme Court of North Carolina. Justice Paul Newby … Please vote for him and to tell others how important his reelection is to North Carolina.

Reference: Neal Hunt News PDF

Hunt’s Header

You may have come here after reading “Hunt endorses Judge Newby — in taxpayer-funded email” at Under the Dome in the Raleigh News & Observer. For those of you interested in such things the header from the message source is reproduced below, showing the state servers used. The receiving email address has been redacted.