Officials from the unions that complained to the Office of Campaign and Political Finance about Killer Coke’s efforts to derail Deval Patrick’s gubernatorial campaign met yesterday with the director and general counsel of OCPF to discuss their complaint. Today’s Herald has a brief summary of the meeting (in what I believe is the Herald’s first mention of the Killer Coke story).
I spoke with Mike Grunko, president of SEIU Local 509 (which has endorsed Patrick for Governor), after the meeting. He said that the OCPF officials “seemed to acknowledge” that, as we suspected, the fliers printed and distributed by Killer Coke (and apparently paid for by Corporate Campaign, Inc.) constitute “express advocacy” rather than the much less heavily regulated “issue advocacy.” Grunko also had the impression that OCPF would be looking at Corporate Campaign, Inc.’s books and financial records to see where the money to fund Killer Coke’s anti-Patrick project came from.
OCPF explained to Grunko that there are four possible resolutions of a complaint like this one: “administrative close” (i.e., no action); a public “resolution letter” (i.e., a letter saying you did something wrong, now go fix it, but no fine or other enforcement action); a “disposition agreement” (i.e., a negotiated settlement between OCPF and the perp that often involves fines, a press release, etc.); and referral to the Attorney General’s office. The last and most serious option, however, is available only after the relevant election (in this case the Democratic primary) has taken place.
Another interesting point that Grunko relayed to me: apparently, the Killer Coke matter is the first test of OCPF’s recently-published bulletin on the distinction between “express advocacy” and “issue advocacy,” and the legal ramifications of each. So it’s possible that OCPF will want to use this case to clarify some of the guidance set forth in that bulletin.
OCPF is very tight-lipped about ongoing investigations, so there is no more information publicly available about who they will be interviewing, or what other inquiries they may make before deciding what to do.
A friend brought it to my attention that Reilly’s comm director Guarino once was the Herald’s political reporter.
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Cuz you’d have thunk that politician + scandal = Herald milking it for all it’s worth.
and referral to the Attorney General’s office.
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Since this case involves a sitting state AG, would this matter be referred to the feds?
feds have no jurisdiction, since this is all under state law. If Reilly were directly involved, he would recuse himself, and either the First Assistant would head the investigation, or they could appoint a Special Assistant AG (i.e., an outside lawyer deputized to handle the case). However, if Reilly weren’t directly involved (i.e., if a case were brought against Rogers and CCI, but not the Reilly campaign), it’s unclear exactly what he would do.
that even if Reilly doesn’t HAVE to step down because the investigation doesn’t involve him, he still would – after all, it involves attacks on his rival for the governor’s race…seems like enough conflict of interest to me.
One would hope….
But, I don’t have a high level of confidence that Reilly would step down. Just based on his behavior in that worcester drunk driving case, I think our AG is going to do what he wants to do.