By Jeremy Portnoy for RealClearInvestigations
Topline: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz accepted $890,000 in marketing campaign donations from staff – together with C-suite executives – of 434 state distributors between 2019 and 2022, a new report from OpenTheBooks discovered.
Those self same corporations collected practically $15 billion in funds from the state between 2019 and 2023, in response to the state checkbook.
Key details: The donations all went to Walz’s marketing campaign for reelection as governor of Minnesota and had been made earlier than he turned the Democratic vice presidential nominee.
CEOs, presidents and different executives of 86 state distributors had been among the many donors.
Workers of regulation agency Blackwell Burke donated $4,750 to Walz’s gubernatorial marketing campaign, marketing campaign data present, and individually obtained virtually $200,000 from the state. Co-founder Jerry Blackwell was one of many prosecutors who helped convict Derek Chauvin of homicide for the demise of George Floyd.
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Ted Mondale, the pinnacle of latest enterprise improvement and authorities relations at laptop consultants Atomic Information, donated $2,250 to Walz. His firm individually obtained $169,310 from the state. Mondale is a former Democratic state senator and the son of Walter Mondale, a former U.S. Senator from Minnesota who additionally served as Jimmy Carter’s vp.
Kinsale Communications obtained $160,583 in state spending, although there’s few on-line data of the enterprise even current in any respect. President Steve Kinsella and his members of the family donated $3,000 to Walz’s marketing campaign.
Different Walz marketing campaign donors that obtained state enterprise included Goal, Basic Mills, Fortune 500 manufacturing firm 3M, and financial institution chains like Wells Fargo and U.S. Financial institution.
Background: It’s practically unattainable to establish which, if any, of the transactions characterize precise conflicts of curiosity.
The Minnesota checkbook accommodates solely greenback values and an inventory of corporations that obtained state cash. The state ignored OpenTheBooks’ freedom of data request for particulars of every transaction, although close by states like Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota had been extra clear.
Walz completed his re-election marketing campaign with greater than $627,000 money readily available as of Dec. 31, 2023. He can’t legally switch the money to the Harris-Walz marketing campaign, however he theoretically may refund the contributions and ask donors to ship the cash again to the presidential ticket.
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Abstract: It’s probably that many Minnesota distributors would have obtained state enterprise even with out donating to Walz’s marketing campaign — but when any are receiving preferential remedy, taxpayers need to know.
The #WasteOfTheDay is delivered to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.
The put up Waste of the Day: Walz Marketing campaign Donors Acquired $15 Billion in State Enterprise appeared first on The Political Insider.
