5 Days until the New Election: Smith's August Finances

As we discussed yesterday, this has become a $1 million Cherokee Chief campaign .  In the last few days before the election, we’ll spend some time talking about where that money is coming from and where it is being spent. We’ll start with Smith today and move to Baker later. 

Smith raised $154,108.99 in the most recent reporting period, including a $38,000 loan.  He had about 132 donors, for an average donation of $879 or so. Donors of note include Barry Derryberry, an OKC area attorney, Council member Jack Baker and former speaker of the house for Oklahoma Chris Benge.  The biggest expenses were $18,924 for telephone (which turns out not to be long distance calls to Uzbekistan, but actually phone polling), $35,106.24 for printing (mailers anyone?) and $23,131.50 for compensation to individuals.

The polling was done by Cole Hardgrave Snodgrass, who we talked about earlier.  He even spent $5,247 on office supplies, which is a lot of staplers and paper clips!

Smith’s total expenditures were $110,992.26, which leaves Smith with $42,616.73 in cash as of September 15. We’ll plan on Baker’s finance report tomorrow, but if our tribal court or the federal court come up with something soon, you’ll understand if we push it back, right?

6 Days Until the New Election: Barenaked Ladies Edition

If I had a million dollars.... I'd build a tree fort in our yard!

If you had a million dollars what would you do with it?  If you answered run  two campaigns  for Principal Chief, you would need every penny.  Between Smith and Baker, more than $1,171,000 is invested in this campaign.  

The Tulsa World did us a semi-favor by posting some information about the latest campaign finance reports, but they managed to not post the actual reports online, so those are still to come. However, we can get to the basics now and the details later.

In August, Smith raised $ 102,979.12 and loaned himself $38,000.    That makes his fundraising total (our math, not the World’s)  $494,544.19, and his loan total of $78,301.91 for a total available to his campaign so far of: $572,648.10.  Which sounds like a lot of money, and it is, until you realize Baker’s stack is just as big.

Between August 16 and September 15, Baker raised $152,851.97, bringing his fundraising total to $444,297.59.  With his loan total of $155,000, the total money available to his campaign so far is $599,297.59.

So we’ve got what has to be the first million dollar campaign in Cherokee Nation history, and we still don’t have a chief!  We’ll post more on the campaign finance reports (and links to the reports themselves) of both candidate  soon.

12 Days Until the New Election: Betting the Farm

The Tulsa World did a finance story over the weekend about the campaign, and got some answers to questions we’ve been wondering about ourselves.

They noticed that Baker has lost money on his furniture business, but still managed to loan himself $155,000.  Baker told the World that he was “plowing a good portion of my lifetime profits into trying to serve the Cherokee people.”

That’s the first time we’ve heard a peep from Baker about how he’s paying for the election, so many thanks to the World for getting Baker on the record.   The World also solved the mystery of how Baker’s income is less than his actual council salary.  They say “much of his $36,000 council-member salary is withheld for tax purposes or goes directly into a retirement fund.”

Smith has loaned himself $40,000, which we’ve covered before as well.  He says that money comes from a loan.  He tells the World:  "For my adult years, I've worked hard, paid my taxes and provided for my family. I do not have the means to self-fund my campaign."

So it looks like both candidates are betting the farm on this one.  The stakes are not just high for the Nation, but for the candidates themselves, which may be a contributing factor in the high emotions surrounding this election.

13 Days Until the New Election: Best Month Ever

Best month ever!  Very Nice!

Yesterday we looked at Chad Smith’s most recent campaign finance reports, to see who is giving him money and what he is spending it on.  Today, it’s Baker’s turn, and we’ll repeat some of yesterday’s caveats:

Keep in mind, this reporting period is for the calendar month of July, which, looking back, went something like recount, court appeal, second recount, court orders new election, Deputy Chief election, then we’re pretty much in August.  The new election was ordered by the Supreme Court on July 21 (see our riveting blog here).

Baker’s report though, covers July 15-August 15, so his numbers should, and are, higher than Smith's.

In fact, the Baker campaign might call July 15-August 15 the best month ever.  The Supreme Court didn’t make Smith chief, even though they counted more votes for Smith.  Baker’s Deputy Chief fave S. Joe Crittenden won the runoff election, and then got sworn in as APCSJC on August 14.  Then on August 15, Baker turned in a report showing that he raised almost $100,000 in those 30 days, which is almost half as much as he raised from other folks this whole election cycle up until July 15.  And he didn’t have to add to the $155,000 in loans he’s made to his campaign.  So again, a pretty good month for Baker. 

His contributors include a few folks who gave to Smith before, so some people may be hedging their bets.  Contributors of note include $1000 bucks from election commissioner-to-be Susan Plumb, $500 from freedmen advocate David Cornsilk, and $2000 from former Supreme Court Justice and Chief candidate Stacy Leeds.  Also, another big donation from a Cherokee Truth reader, but we’ll let that person ID themselves if they wish.

Baker’s expenditures for the month totaled $68,438.79.  His biggest expenses were related to the recount and other miscellaneous ($28,500) and printing ($26,969).

Baker’s attorney Kalyn Free got $10k for ‘lawsuit’ and a DC firm got $20,000 for mail printing.

Baker’s cash on hand was $61,176.20 on August 15.

Baker’s total contributions from others so far now total $291,445.62.

That’s on top of the $155,000 loan, which puts the total money in his campaign so far at $446,445.62.

The September 15 reports will be out soon, and we’ll get you information on those as quick as we can.  If any of our readers have access to those reports, please email them to cherokeetruth@gmail.com.

14 Days Until the New Election: Money Money Money!

Maybe it’s a little overdue (since we’re into September), but we owe it to you, our readers, to keep up with our campaign finance watchdoggery. Mainly because no one else is really trying very hard!  We’ll look at Smith and Baker’s August 15 financial reports in the next couple of days.  Today, we’ll start with Smith and tomorrow we’ll go with Baker.

Keep in mind, this reporting period is for the calendar month of July, which, looking back, went something like recount, court appeal, second recount, court orders new election, Deputy Chief election, then we’re pretty much in August.  The new election was ordered by the Supreme Court on July 21 (see our riveting blog from that day here).

So there wasn’t much time for fundraising, or much to spend money on, for either of the candidates.

Smith started with $28,060, raised $12,890 and loaned himself $26,003.  That brings his total loans to about $40,000. Click here to reference Smith's entire report.

Interesting donors include state legislator Brian Bingman, former Cherokee Supreme Court Justice Philip Viles, and an employee Baker wrongfully accused of breaking the law. 

Smith’s expenditures for the month totaled $53,824.  The biggest expenditures were for miscellaneous/recount/election challenge, which includes paying some lawyers.  That total was $18,631.  Next was advertising, which might be bills coming in from the ads placed prior to the June election.  The total there was $16,698.

Smith’s cash on hand at the end of July was $13,129.87

Smith’s fundraising total through the whole campaign $391,565.07. On top of his $40,103.91 in loans,  Smith has had a total of $431,668.98 to spend on his campaign thus far. 

39 Days Until the New Election: Smith Spending

Last week we went back to campaign finances, talking about the July finance reports for contributions for both Baker and Smith.

Things got busy this weekend, but since the August reports are coming out soon, we’ll dig into the numbers on HOW they candidates spent their money in the last days of the general election.  This time, we’ll start with Smith and move to Baker tomorrow.

Smith’s expenses, like his fundraising, were pretty eye-popping for the July reporting period.  For instance, he spent $103,872.54 on printing.  That buys a lot of ink and paper, we reckon.  It looks like most of that went to a company called Majority Designs in Oklahoma City.  The next biggest expenditure was $44,342.23 for compensation to individuals.  The biggest chunk of that seems to be more than $22,000 to a company called Cole Hargrave Snodgrass in Oklahoma City, which, surprisingly, doesn’t seem to have a web page, but does appear to have been founded at one point by current U.S. representative Tom Cole.  The other big line item was $11,276.65 for advertisements.

In all, Smith spent $174,018.25 between June 1 and June 29.  That brings his total expenditures to $364,714.44 and his campaign balance is $28,060.50.

But don't just take our word for it.  Check the links and see for yourself.

Tomorrow:  Baker's expenditures.

Election Limbo Day 46- Campaign Finance & Baker

With all the recounts, threecounts, court decisions and runoffs, we never got around to the campaign finance reports for July for Smith and Baker.  Since the August reports are due already, we thought we’d play catch up.  For those of you who are new, we’ve analyzed their campaign finance reports since they first started coming out in April.  You can see them in our archives.

April

May

June

Over the next four days, we’ll go through the July reports and see where the candidates got their money and what they spent it on.  We’ll post the reports for you to see, since the July ones never popped up on the Cherokee Phoenix like the other ones did.

And just so you know where we’re going, we’re going to do Baker contributions first, then Smith’s, then Smith’s expenditures and then Bakers.  That’ll be four days worth.  Depending on what ever else happens, we may post these over the next four days or spread them out a little, but don’t worry, they are coming soon.

So, let's start with Baker’s contributions.   He started the reporting period with $13,507.08 in the bank.  He raised $17,553.72 from others and loaned his campaign $40,000.  That brings his total loans so far to $155,000… as we’ve said before, that’s a huge commitment from the Mr. and Mrs. Baker, who report a combined income of $41,000 to the IRS.

Notable contributions include $500 from Susan Chapman Plumb (nominated by the council for the election commission) and her husband.  Susan’s dad, Gary Chapman, gave Baker $1,000.  UKB lawyer Dianne Barker Harrold coughed up $150.  One of our readers and occasional commenters chipped in $2,427 (we won’t name names, but claim it if you want).  Chuck Hoskin gave $97.  We’re pretty sure that’s Chuck H. Jr., because he’s listed as a lawyer and Chuck H. Sr. was an educator and is now a state rep, but that’s just our speculation.  It’s clear that both Sr. and Jr.  support Baker, so it probably doesn’t matter which one handed over the $97.

Baker’s total contributions from others so far, $191,628.17 (including $20,000 from his family).

That’s on top of the $155,000 loan, which puts the total money in his campaign so far at $346,646.96.

Coming soon… Who’s giving to Smith?

Election Limbo Day 35: That’s Your Opinion

Opinions are like uvulas: everybody’s got one.  But when the Attorney General trots out her opinion about the rules for the next election, we guess we best take notice.

New yesterday, but kinda drowned out by the new election, is the idea that newly registered voters won’t get to elect the Principal Chief.  The only voters who were eligible to vote last time around will get to vote in September. 

On several occasions in this election, we’ve heard Baker and Smith both tell us that every vote counts.  We found out of course, during the recount and court process, that there were some votes that weren’t counted, (challenge ballots) and some votes that Baker didn’t want counted (the mysteriously vanishing votes from the recount).

The election commission apparently has more than 3,000 voters who want to vote, but registered after the deadline of March 31.  The Attorney General of the Cherokee Nation interprets the election law to read that the end of March is the deadline for the whole election year, not just for the general election.  So if you are one of those folks who got their voter registration forms in a day late, April Fools.  You still can’t vote this time around.

The other opinion said that campaign finance rules from the first election still apply.  That should make Baker happy, since he asked the Supreme Court to decide things that way a couple of weeks ago.  Both candidates had their share of donors who reached the $5000 contribution limit  (see our campaign finance blogs), but this is arguably worse for Smith, because there are no limitations on what Baker’s biggest contributor can give:  Baker has sunk more than $115,000 cash into his campaign.   

At least we know some of the rules for the upcoming election.  Now its our job as citizens to go vote.

3 Days Until the Election- How to Spend $141K in 30 Days

Yesterday, we talked about how much money the candidates have raised so far and today we’ll talk about where they are spending the cash.  Or, as we pointed out last month, where we know they are spending cash even if it’s not showing up on their expenditure reports yet.

We’ll start with Smith today.  His expenditures for the reporting period were $47,291.16.  The biggest chunk of that, $19,621.34, was used for printing, and the second biggest chunk, $8,879.67 went for postage, so that accounts for all the mailers Cherokee voters have been getting.  His compensation to individuals is the third biggest expenditure, at $6,732.50.  Smith’s vendors are Oklahoma based, for the most part.  All, except for about $300 of his expenses, were paid out to people/businesses in Oklahoma.

Some of our readers have already looked the report over, and pointed out a few things.  One, Smith did copy Baker’s lead and take out some Facebook ads, and possibly some other online ads, and those are not reported yet.  Also, there was a Cherokee Phoenix story talking about a phone poll Smith did, and those expenditures aren’t on here either.

Last month, we pointed out similar discrepancies in the Baker campaign, specifically that there were no expenditures for Cherokee Phoenix ads, even though we’d all seen them.  Those expenditures show up in this month’s Baker report, so maybe there is a time lag or something after the ads or services are rendered and the time they show up as paid on the report. Baker also does not have online ads showing up on this report; but we’re not sure if he’s not run any in a while, or it may just be that it hasn’t shown up on the report yet.

Anyway, it’s something to keep an eye on after the election for both candidates.

Baker’s outspent Smith almost exactly 2-1 during this reporting period, spending $94,446.28.  Baker’s biggest category was $33,774.54 for miscellaneous, which is mostly consulting.  He also had large amounts for printing ($30,639.26) and postage ($17,889.48), and his compensation to individuals was $8,196 for the month.

Approximately $53,000 of Baker’s expenditures this month went to firms in Washington D.C. or nearby Potomac, Maryland.   So Baker spent more money in DC this past month than Smith did on his entire campaign in the same time period.   

4 Days Until the Election: Smith, Baker and the Benjamin$

Candidates have submitted their third campaign finance report, and the last one before the election.  It’s out last chance as voters to see who they are getting their money from, and where they are spending it, before we go vote.  There are more finance reports due after the election, so we’ll still be able to find out more, but by then, we will have elected our Chief.

Since time is short, we’ll just do two blogs on finance here in the past week, one on the amount of money raised by each candidate, and one on the expenditures of each campaign.  Also, these aren't posted on the Cherokee Phoenix web site, so we'll have to put them online ourselves.  

Today, we’ll start with Bill John Baker.  At the end of his last report, his campaign had about $17,000.  He’s raised $44,746.47 since then, and loaned his campaign a whopping $46,000.  That brings his total loans to his campaign to $115,000.  As we’ve said before, that’s a lot of scratch for a guy who reports an income of less than $50,000 a year to the IRS.  His family has also donated $20,000 more, so that’s a big commitment from folks named Baker to this election.

He had 84 donors chipping in to add up to the $44,746.47 total, which averages out to almost $533 per donor.  His previous donors average $625 each. Baker had a listing for $500 in anonymous cash, which, as we mentioned in the last campaign finance blog for Smith,  is perfectly legal, as long as the anonymous cash is less than $1000 for the total campaign.

Overall, Baker has raised $174,074.75 from others, including $20,000 from his family.  His loans to his own campaign total $115,018.49, which brings the total amount of money available to the campaign so far to $289,093.

Baker has $13,507.08 left in his campaign account, and no telling how much more in his personal piggy bank that he’s willing to chip in during the final few days.

At the end of his last report, Smith had about $42,000 in his account, and he raised $59,299.14 since then. 

He had 138 contributors, which means his average donation was about $429.  His previous donors average was $700.

Overall Smith has raised $244,944.94 from others.  He’s loaned his campaign $100, which brings the total amount of money available to his so far to  $245,044.94.

Smith has $54,348.75 left in his campaign, as of the end of June.

That means through this reporting period, Baker has spent more than $275,000, and Smith has spent about $190,000. 

Overall, Smith has raised more money from others, but Baker, with his six-figure loan, has more money to spend, and has spent more. 

Tomorrow, we’ll talk about how each candidate is spending their money.

16 Days Until the Election-Broken Promises

Tonight's truth delves into the murky water of campaign promises. Usually, a candidate waits until he/she is elected before they break a campaign promise. Remember "Read My Lips---No New Taxes?" But in this election, one candidate already has egg on his face. 

Since Bill John Baker first announced his candidacy for Principal Chief, he's made a big deal out of campaign finance, honesty and integrity. As recently as the end of April, Baker "challenged" Chad Smith to forgo campaign contributions from non-Cherokee, outside vendors. He also challenged Smith to not accept campaign donations from owners of businesses that contract with the tribe and its entities.

Baker, early on in January, told the Cherokee Phoenix, "I believe refusing contributions from anyone who benefits from contracts with our people will ensure there is not even the hint of impropriety or conflict of interest."

Then, in campaign material Baker mailed out to voters he made a promise. It was such a big promise that he underlined it. He declared to Cherokee voters that "He is the only candidate who refuses to accept campaign contributions from non-Cherokee outside vendors who make money from our Nation."

The Truth? Bill John Baker has taken at least $11,000 from three individuals who are both non-Cherokee AND vendors who make money by doing business with Cherokee Nation. What's even more startling is that when he made the above challenge to Smith on April 27, 2011, he had ALREADY POCKETED all $11,000 from the very folks he promised he would not take campaign contributions.

We'll break it down for you. Baker took $5,000 from non-Cherokee vendor Dr. Christopher DeLoache back on January 13, 2011. Dr. Deloache has made more than a million dollars thru his association with the tribe. 

Then, on April 14, 2011, he took $1,000 from Randy Skinner, owner of Tahlequah Lumber, a non-Cherokee vendor who has made more than $6.7 million doing business with Cherokee Nation.

A few days later on April 18, Baker pocketed another $5,000 from George Glover of Glover Construction Company who has been paid more than $6 million by the tribe for services rendered.

Want to see for yourself? Click here to and scroll down to page 4 to see DeLoache's donation and click here and scroll down to pages 5 and 7 to see Glover and Skinner's donations.

And because we are only interested in the truth, the Freedom of Information Act confirms what we are reporting tonight:

It's possible, but not likely, that Baker didn't know that three of his biggest campaign donors did business with the Cherokee Nation. Especially the two Tahlequah donors. If he knows them well enough to ask them for money, and he's made an important campaign promise about his donors, you'd think he'd ask them whether they did business with the Cherokee Nation.

In the campaign flyer in which Baker talks about not taking money from vendors, he also says 'the integrity of tribal government needs to be restored.' At this point, Baker needs to either return the money and keep his promise, or admit that he's breaking his promise.

The Truth is that Baker broke a campaign promise just weeks after he made it, and weeks before he was even an official candidate.

19 Days Until the Election- Watch for Flying Mud

Nothing like a federal investigation to get the election kicked into high gear.  Even if it appears to only be a one day long investigation that never really WAS an investigation to begin with.

The Baker campaign said they had ‘clear evidence’ that Smith’s campaign was ‘violating federal law by shaking down tribal employees for money.’  In an email blast, Bakers campaign said Smith’s actions were ‘not only wrong, but illegal.’

Baker attached a letter  that he says three Cherokee Nation employees high up in the health department sent to other health group employees. The letter spends a lot of time talking about how awesome the health group is, a paragraph or so talking about registering to vote in the election, etc. and a few sentences on giving to Smith’s campaign, asking ‘health professionals’ to give ‘$500-$1000’ to Smith’s campaign.  Baker claims this is a violation of something called the Hatch Act.

Smith’s campaign responds by saying the U.S. Attorney has already looked at this and said nothing illegal happened.  Smith’s email includes comments from the Cherokee Nation Attorney General Hammons who said, “I was made aware of allegations by Bill John Baker's campaign that Cherokee Nation Health Services employees had violated the Hatch Act by campaigning for Chad Smith. I have spoken with the U. S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Oklahoma and have been informed that there is no Hatch Act violation. That federal Act pertains to partisan campaign actions by federal employees. The employees are not federal employees and a tribal election is not a partisan election.” (click link for full story)

This can hardly be the first time in the history of Cherokee elections that employees have been asked to donate money to candidates.  It is the first time anyone thought it was a violation of federal law, and the feds have said, no, that’s not the case.  We assume Baker doesn’t think this is a violation of tribal law, or he would have said so.

It’s amazing how much time is being spent on who is giving to whom, but those are a lot of the questions we are getting at Cherokee Truth.

In this case, Baker immediately got an answer to a legal question he raised.  Hopefully, from here on out, he’ll use the truth to educate Cherokee voters.  Maybe he doesn’t like employees supporting Smith, but he shouldn’t accuse them of breaking the law if they haven’t done so.  Maybe that one-day "investigation" will be the end of it, but for some reason we don’t think so.