Norm Coleman can’t run for governor with recount cash
Friday, January 15, 2010 at 5:35 pm
- 7 Comments
If Norm Coleman runs for governor of Minnesota, it won’t be with money left over from the record-setting U.S. Senate campaign against Al Franken.
The main reason: Under Minnesota law, he can’t.
Gary Goldsmith, executive director of the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, tells the Minnesota Independent:
Minnesota Statutes Section 10A.27, subd. 9(c) prohibits a state candidate from accepting any contribution from a federal candidate’s committee. This would prohibit transfer of any candidate’s federal committee funds to the a state office committee of the same candidate.
Even if such transfers were allowed, they couldn’t come from the campaign committee Coleman formed to take his recount showdown with Franken to Minnesota courts. Coleman terminated his recount committee last fall, according to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).
The only federal Coleman committee that is current in FEC records is “Coleman for Senate 08.” That committee last filed a financial report in October, when it had $91,621 on hand. (The FEC found donor information in the October report to be lacking; the campaign has until next Tuesday to send in complete info.)
Coleman for Senate 08 got nearly $6,000, and the Republican Party of Minnesota nearly $30,000, from the Coleman Minnesota Recount Committee in its last days of operation last September.
Update: Coleman announced on Jan. 17 that he won’t be entering the governor’s race in 2010.
7 Comments
Comment posted January 15, 2010 @ 8:05 pm
Meanwhile some Republican dropped out recently because Coleman still had not ruled out a run for the office.
If he wants in, I doubt he’ll have funding problems.
Personally, after he made We the People of Minnesota go through that election contest, and his advocates and party members constantly trashed Minnesota’s electoral system, i’d as soon he not run.
He doesn’t seem to respect the good faith and good will of Minnesota election officials and volunteers, nor does he accept election results graciously, and he delayed our US senatorial representation at an important time in our nation’s history
Enjoy your elevation back to private life, Mr. Coleman.
Comment posted January 15, 2010 @ 10:46 pm
Take this illegal money away from norm. He is a crook.
Comment posted January 16, 2010 @ 3:54 pm
Well…
Being a Conservative and all.. I don’t know any Republican or Conservative for that matter who is really thrilled with him.
I would move back to MN just to vote against him if he ran for Govenor!
Comment posted January 16, 2010 @ 4:11 pm
I live in GA, and I followed the recount process very carefully via The Uptake. I didn’t like what I witnessed on Coleman’s part, and IMHO, he does not deserve another chance from the citizens of Minnesota. He was determined to make the election results what he and his supporters wanted them to be instead of abiding by the rulings of the courts. Minnesota has one of the best systems for overseeing recounts in the U.S. that I have seen. I wish all states had a system similar to it. We sure could use one like it in GA.
Comment posted January 17, 2010 @ 11:42 am
Great. Normy in office with revenge on his mind.
Comment posted January 17, 2010 @ 4:40 pm
I was at an event recently with Mn Secretary of State Mark Ritchie. He said that his nightmare is that Norm runs for Governor, and it is a very close race, close enough that state law requires his office to supervise a recount, and the recount shows Norm losing by a few hundred votes, and …
at that point Ritchie wakes up in a cold sweat!
Comment posted January 17, 2010 @ 6:36 pm
I think he should run. Another humiliating defeat would ensure that we never ever have to hear about him again. One exception would be publishing that he has decided to walk away from his mortgage. He’s seriously underwater right now and with no chance of getting back into public office will have his benefactors rethinking their support. What use is he to them when he can’t “fix” things for them, so bankcuptcy, forclosure and a life of poverty await Norm.
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