The Campaign to Stop Killer Coke, a/k/a Ray Rogers, is coming from his New York home to Massachusetts, apparently tonight, according to State House News Service.
The SHNS story reports that Rogers is “planning to disrupt Deval Patrick campaign appearances this week.” And, in a potentially important development, Rogers told SHNS that “other campaigns had shown interest” in his activities. That could be important because, under state campaign finance law, even “issue advocacy,” which normally is unregulated, becomes regulated if it is “coordinated” with a political campaign. I didn’t discuss the “coordination” issue in my previous post on Killer Coke and OCPF regs, since I assumed that Rogers was acting completely on his own, but that assumption may prove to have been unwarranted. Curiouser and curiouser.
Also fascinating is the involvement of John Bonifaz in all this, as reported by SHNS. I had noticed in reading Killer Coke’s materials that the attorney in charge of the litigation against Texaco on behalf of Ecuadorians claiming injury from Texaco’s environmental practices was named Bonifaz, but hadn’t realized that the attorney, Cristobal Bonifaz, is John Bonifaz’s father. Silly me. Anyway, John Bonifaz was also involved in the case:
Bonifaz, who along with his father, Cristobal, represented Ecuadorians and Peruvians in two separate cases, said he first met Patrick during those proceedings. He praised for Patrick for “a very strong effort within the company” to resolve the cases, but said both are still pending.
Asked if his encounters with Patrick during that case made him more likely or less likely to vote for his former opponent for governor, Bonifaz said he’d be “more likely.”
“I think that Deval did try very hard to resolve the matter, but unfortunately I think that there were other forces within the company that chose not to have the matter resolved and instead wanted to avoid any responsibility whatsoever for damage to the Ecuadorian and Peruvian Amazon,” said Bonifaz, who is trying to unseat Secretary of State William Galvin.
Bonifaz, in addition to backing Patrick’s role in the Texaco litigation, has now issued a statement calling for OCPF to investigate whether Killer Coke’s anti-Patrick campaign is in compliance with Mass. campaign finance law. (His statement draws expressly on my previous posts).
The New York-based Campaign to Stop Killer Coke is currently engaged in activity raising questions about the corporate law record of Deval Patrick, Democratic candidate for Governor. This activity appears to constitute express advocacy for the defeat of a particular candidate and, as such, would be subject to oversight by OCPF.
As first revealed by David Kravitz at BlueMassGroup.com, the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke appears to be run by Corporate Campaign, Inc., a private consulting firm….
If the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke is, in fact, a project of a for-profit business, then expenditures by the business for that projects express advocacy in the Massachusetts governors race would run afoul of [state] law….
As Massachusetts Secretary of State, I will be vigilant in protecting the integrity of our electoral process. Irrespective of the questions raised by the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke, it is critical that we ensure full compliance with Massachusetts campaign finance law by any individual or group making expenditures for the purpose of supporting or defeating a candidate. Based on available evidence, a full investigation by OCPF is warranted in this matter.
Personally, it’s not clear to me that investigation is warranted right now, since as far as I know none of these fliers has been physically handed to anyone yet, and posting things on the internet remains a pretty nebulous area as far as campaign finance is concerned. But with Mr. Rogers on his way here tonight, all that may change very quickly. (Remember, though, that Rogers does have 7 days to file expenditure reports.)
Finally, we appreciate SHNS’s recognition of BMG’s role in all this:
The legitimacy of Rogers’s criticism enlivened a prominent liberal blog Tuesday morning, after the site host delved into the Patrick detractor’s business background. Over 25 posts lit up BlueMassGroup.com Tuesday morning, after site host David Kravitz posted the findings of his apparently Web-based investigation into Rogers’s business background.
Speaking with the News Service, Rogers answered bloggers’ questions about his credibility. Rogers said contributions to the Campaign to Stop Killer Coke are not tax deductible, and identified the group as “a very small operation” aimed at helping workers in Colombia.
I’m not sure why the fact that the CtSKC is “a very small operation” has anything to do with whether it’s in violation of campaign finance laws or not, but that’s not really my problem.
Finally, the Globe blog also put up a post on Bonifaz’s comments to SHNS and his statement about an OCPF investigation. It linked back to Frank Phillips’s article that launched this whole thing, but didn’t mention that BMG had anything to do with any of it. Come on, guys, little help?
