I see something strange in Boston State Senator Dianne Wilkerson’s OCPF filing: No expenditures for office rent. If it’s what it seems to be, it is against the law.
Look at her 2008 pre-primary report, covering Jan 1 – Aug 31 of this year, and her 2007 year-end report, covering all of 2007. She does have a campaign office. She does list expenditures for things like “Office Telephone Bill” and “Blinds For Tremont Street Office”, but the only mention of rent is room rent for a couple of fundraisers. Browse some other candidates’ filings and you’ll see all the ones that have campaign offices outside their homes, report expenditures for rent, but not Dianne Wilkerson.
If she’s got some deal where she gets to pay all the rent in one big sum at the end, she at least has to report it as a liability, but it’s not in the liabilities portion of the report. The office is not her home as far as I can tell. Her office at 1050 Tremont Street appears to be in a building owned by “Cornerstone Properties” and it would be illegal for a campaign to accept donated office space from a company – they must pay reasonable market value rent under the law. Even if the space is owned by an individual, in-kind donations cannot exceed $500/campaign/year, and rent obviously costs more than that. Also, there’s no “In Kind” section in her OCPF report anyway.
Am I missing something? Or is Dianne Wilkerson violating campaign finance law again? If someone can explain to me what is going on such that this is legit, I will re-title this post to something more innocent-sounding.
(Disclosure: I have volunteered and donated to Sonia Chang-Diaz, Dianne Wilkerson’s opponent in Tuesday’s primary. However, what I’m posting about here is a simple matter of fact and law, not opinion.)
I always like to go to the source first and ask there. Why not call Wilkerson’s campaign office and ask for a clarification?
When I got around to having time to write this up it was Sunday night and too late, and I didn’t have a chance to before work this morning. Please do call and comment back here with what they say.
I don’t see where her comm. address is listed as being at 1050 Tremont Ave. I only see an address of 33 winthrop street in Roxbury. Can you point me the section of the report that shows her address as being on Tremont? Thanks
I found it bizarre that I couldn’t find their office address listed anywhere online. In the real, physical world, however, the office is there.
An OCPF report doesn’t have to say what the locations of campaign offices, BTW, it only has to list the official address of the committee/campaign, which does not have to be an office. Since campaigns rarely maintain offices in off-years, the OCPF address is often the home of the treasurer or something similar. They may open one, or multiple, physical campaign offices during an election year, and may often clear them all out after the election, so campaign office addresses are not a good choice for filing with OCPF.
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p>However, in this particular case there does happen to be a reference to the Tremont Street office in the report: One of the listed expenditures is $250 for “Blinds For Tremont Street Office”.
that she is located on Tremont Street? That could be an old expenditure. How do you know she is not using her apartment or someone’s else’s home. I’m just saying, without more information I don’t see how you can state your post as fact. BTW, just because you disclose who you’re supporting, it doesn’t mean that your post is without bias. I just think you need something a little more to justify the headline in the postIMHO
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p>http://www.diannedelivers08.co…
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p>Originally coming from a Bay Windows article.
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p>I’ve also heard several people talk about Wilkerson’s office on Tremont St. before this ever came up as an issue – including people who support Wilkerson. In fact, I was asked to volunteer for Wilkerson and this was the address they told me to go to (via an email I just looked up on gmail):
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p>So I’m going to go ahead and guess Cos’s address is off by a few buildings, but she does have a Tremont St. office and it’s almost exactly where Cos was saying it was.
1050 Tremont and 1062 Tremont are the same building, so the discrepancy makes sense (I got the address from someone who had been there, and looked at the address on the building). It’s this place.
Well, I originally found out where her office was by asking someone who has been by there in person. That’s pretty “tangible”. He sent me a photo of it (taken by cell phone I guess). However, you can also call their office and ask where they’re located.
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p>1050 Tremont and 1062 Tremont are the same building BTW, It’s Roxse Homes, a pretty big building.
Cos, question not related directly to the Chang-Diaz/Wilkerson race, but more to campaign finance in general.
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p>Are candidates able to claim expenses incurred before a formal declaration of candidacy? Bob Trane, who’s running against Carl Sciortino in the 34th Middlesex, listed $3400 of expenses that he rang up between January 1 and the time he pulled papers during the spring.
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p>I’d usually assume this is politics as usual, but Trane’s bobos at the Somerville News quashed three comments I made mentioning this, so I think something’s up.
I’m not clear exactly what you’re asking, but I also know that I don’t know the answer to that one. I’d call OCPF and ask.
It’s possible that the expenses you see are related to a district office that Senator Wilkerson has. If that is the case, the rent might not be a campaign expense if it is not being paid by her committee. And campaign funds are allowed to be used for items related to that office, like the blinds and the phone bill.
What do you mean by a “district office”? You can’t use a legislator’s district office as a campaign office rent-free.
By district office, I mean an office that she has outside of the state house for legislative work. I don’t see what would prevent her from conducting campaign activities there (as far as I know the prohibition is on campaign activities on government property). If she conducts campaign business from her house, she doesn’t need to pay herself rent. I would think that an office that she pays for from her legislative salary should be treated the same way.
You may think that, but that’s not what I understand the law says. One way or another, if a campaign is using that space as an office and it’s not her home, the campaign needs to pay fair rent for the space. I’ve always understood Massachusetts campaign finance law to say that, and I asked several people more familiar with the law than I and they concur. Do you know differently?
No, I don’t know differently. And I am not pretending to be an expert in campaign finance law, but I am not accusing anyone of violating it either. A quick look at the guidance published by OCPF indicates that your understanding is correct – a campaign does need to pay rent for office space that they are using for a campaign and not for residential space.
However, in your post you asked if you were missing something, and I think my original point is still valid – the mere existence of expenditures for an office does not necessarily mean that 1) she has a campaign office or 2) these expenditures were for any such campaign office. It is still possible that the blinds she purchased and the phone bill she paid were for a non-campaign office, like her district office. Now, the information in the comments does seem to suggest that she has been using Tremont for campaign activities, but I don’t think the info in the OCPF report gets you there.
Oh, no, of course the OCPF report by itself doesn’t “prove” she has an office, though it very strongly suggests it. However, since I knew she did in fact have a campaign office, and it existed in real physical space, that wasn’t an issue. I wasn’t claiming that her OCPF filing was the only evidence of the existence of the office; the office itself, the real office in the real world, was the evidence of its own existence.
not to defend Dianne, but District offices are often paid for by the campaign committee. It is a different set up than the federal government. Co-mingling of funds for this purpose are strangely allowed.
An office paid for the by the campaign committee could indeed also be used as a district office; since the campaign committee were paying for it, it could be used as a campaign office. However, obviously, that expenditure would need to be reported in the OCPF filing.
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p>If, however, the campaign committee is not paying rent on the space, it can’t be used as a free campaign office.
“When I got around to having time to write this up it was Sunday night and too late, and I didn’t have a chance to before work this morning.”
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p>I know Chang-Diaz’s supporters don’t give a crap about what Dianne Wilkerson has done for racial minorities and the poor over the last 15 years, but doesn’t her indispensible work on marriage equality at least earn her the respect of a phone call?
Seriously, your histrionics are making you look ridiculous. And will you please stop trying to insert race into this race? Both women are minorities. This contest is about who is more deserving of the public trust. That’s it.
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p>2 things: First, he didn’t need to call the Wilkerson campaign to find out where her office was. HE KNEW WHERE IT WAS. Secondly, you were earlier talking about ‘condescending posts.’ I find it absolutely condescending that you’d hold Cos, or anyone, to such a high standard that you wouldn’t take his word for it that the office was where he said it was. A campaign office isn’t exactly a secret thing.
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p>And for crying out loud – speaking as someone who identifies as gay, NO, supporting marriage equality doesn’t earn anyone the right to break the law. We deserve politicians who respect us and the law. To assume anything less is demeaning. Period.
All of us who self identify as progressives or liberals or conservatives or moderates and who have been deeply involved in re districting fights in Massachusetts because we are committed to the notion that the Black community ought to have it’s own voice, ought to think hard before telling Dianne’s constituents to throw her out.
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p>Full disclosure. I do not live in Dianne’s district, I have contributed and am working in her campaign. I know Sonia is a good person and I appreciate Sonia’s postive campaign promoting her own skills, experience and qualifications for this office. Also, this is a duplicate post
absolutely try to get more minorities in elected office (as well as women). Until there’s proportional representation, the progressive movement hasn’t gone far enough in making this a truly small d democracy where the best and brightest at representing their communities are the ones who are elected.
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p>That said, I have two problems with your post. For starters, Sonia is a minority herself. We’re not exactly putting someone into office who doesn’t understand the needs of minorities in her district. Not only is she one of them, she’s been walking the streets day after day listening to their concerns – and she’s been working for their causes for years in schools, at the state house and with the Mass Budget and Policy Center. She will be an asset to her community and those who need help most.
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p>Secondly, the notion that corruption and habitual law breaking should be forgiven because of one’s skin color is, well, misguided – to put it mildly. By all indications, not only can the community do better in having strong leadership from a strong female, minority leader… but it looks like they’re about to elect one.
You’re moving into Lani Guinier territory it seems. How about just electing the best person for the job? Frankly, it seems like Wilkerson doesn’t fit that bill. We should celebrate when barriers are broken, but it should never be a goal that a legislative body exactly reflect demographic makeup. Legislators are elected to represent geographic districts and are quite capable of working for constituents who are not exactly like them. I completely reject any suggestion that only a black person is capable of representing black people (or fill in any other trait for “black”). The question is does the person generally reflect the views of the voters without being incompetent or corrupt. I don’t find pushing for demographic proportionality progressive at all. Just stick to one person=one vote and let the chips fall where they may. Group identity politics makes me rather uncomfortable to say the least.
You’re getting upset over a straw man. Google “proportional representation” to read about what that term means. It does not mean enforcing any particular demographic proportion in a legislature.
I said that representation that’s in proportion to our state’s actual statistics is an important goal that the progressive movement must strive to achieve. That’s not a quota or a change to the fundamentals of how we elect people to office (ie one person, one vote). It’s simply that each group of people in this country ought to have representation in office – because, quite simply, that’s the only way to make sure government and politics is in touch with the people it seeks to govern.
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p>Again, that doesn’t mean a quota system, that just means that we must strive to make color, sex and sexuality cease to be a barrier to being elected. In a perfect world, a minority could just as easily win office in a 95% white suburb as a white person and vice versa.
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p>Indeed, that’s where I’m at, but I believe we can empower communities without altering the fundamentals of our political system and be far, far more inclusive to minorities and women in the political process. You put way too much meaning into “proportional” that was not intended when I wrote the initial post. I was only trying to say that we need to make the color barrier and minority barriers disappear, so anyone could win anywhere. I firmly believe that if that were to happen, we’d simply have a much closer to proportional representation of minorities in politics. Why? Because there’s a lot of untapped talent and skills in this state because there are people who may not currently have the resources to run, or feel empowered enough to do so. Those are the kinds of things I’d like to see changed.
That’s right—-their both tax cheats and feel as if they are above the law. I have to pay my taxes ( and my local taxes just went up) But Daianne and cahrlie don’t. The icing on the cake : Charlie has office space in subsidized housing. Isn’t America a beautiful place? Especially if you are “protected”.
I take it you called Cornerstone Properties today, just to be fair, as any good journalist would be obligated to do? This seems like a hatchet job- too close to the election for there to be any negative consequences for you or Chang-Diaz if it turns out to be an unjustified accusation. Good strategy, in keeping with the somewhat sleazy and overwhelmingly negative campaign Chang-Diaz has been running.
coming in the defense of a legislator with DW’s track record
I don’t think Cos is a journalist, so I’m sure he’s not required to do more than what he did. Anyone can look at the OCPF records and see no rent paid (I did, did you?). If that is the case, and it appears to be, then it’s not simply a matter of “accepting donated office space,” it’s a matter of Senator Wilkerson breaking the law again.
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p>What compelled me to respond to you is the “somewhat sleazy and overwhelmingly negative” comment. Can you point to a single sleazy or negative thing that the Chang-Diaz campaign has done? Sonia Chang-Diaz has been campaigning for almost this whole year saying that we shouldn’t have to choose between ethics/accountability and good positions on the issues. That’s sleazy? That’s negative? Are you for real?
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p>2. Wilkerson is a habitual campaign finance law violator. It’s not all that unreasonable that someone would look into her most recent filing and be surprised to find that her office isn’t listed. And it isn’t listed. You can’t have office space in politics rent free. Period.
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p>3. Given that blogs are a discussion, and given that Cos obviously did a lot of work investigating this on his own already, someone else can feel free to finish the job and explain the discrepancy. Cos obviously reached the point that he could given his current resources. If you or others have more time and resources, by all means, dig deeper.
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p>4. There’s almost a 100% chance that Wilkerson’s campaign has read this very post – even the replies. If they’d care to clear everything up, they are absolutely more than welcome to. Campaigns can participate in this discussion – and they should.
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p>5. This sentence, “Good strategy, in keeping with the somewhat sleazy and overwhelmingly negative campaign Chang-Diaz has been running,” is outrageous. Clearly, if you think that of Sonia, you haven’t been paying attention. Period.
If you actually read my post, you’ll see that I suggested several possibilities, all of which would violate campaign finance law, and said I didn’t know which was true. Accepting free office space is one possibility. Another possibility I mentioned is that her campaign may actually have paid rent, but failed to report the expenditure in their OCPF filing (also illegal). Another is that they may have a deal where they pay all the rent at the end, and failed to report the liability in their OCPF filing (also illegal).
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p>I am not accusing Wilkerson of any specific scenario, I’m just pointing out that all of the scenarios in which a campaign has an office outside the candidate’s home and doesn’t report rent either as an expenditure or liability for the entire time, are illegal.
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p>If that is unjustified, explain to me how I am wrong about this. I’ve asked various people who know campaign finance law, I’ve read through her OCPF filings and several other candidates’ for comparison, and I’ve had this post sitting here for a couple of days now. What facts here do you dispute?
Cos: In your original post you noted that the building is owned by “Cornerstone Properties.” How did you find this out? All of the public records I looked at (City on-line assessing and Register of Deeds) list “Roxse Residences LLP” as the owner. I think the LLP is a partnership between Cornerstone, who ownds 51%, and the tenants own the other 49%. So at the least your above post should mention that the building is essentially co-owned.
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I did notice that Cornerstone owns 51% not 100%, but it really doesn’t matter – as I pointed out, regardless of the ownership of the building, if the office space is not her home then the campaign has to pay rent. If it were an individual owner they could donate the first $500 worth of rent as an in-kind donation (but she doesn’t report any in-kind office space donation anyway), but that’s not possible here. The fact that tenants have minority ownership doesn’t affect any of that.