The Pima County Republican Party has been stocking up on cash lately to boost Senate Prez Tim Bee’s campaign against Democratic Congresswoman Gabby Giffords in CD8, mostly because the national GOP doesn’t want to put any money into the amateur operation state GOP chair Randy Pullen is running up in Phoenix. (Remember when Karl Rove did a Pima County GOP fund raiser instead of helping out the state party?)

Looks like the Pima GOP has so much money sitting around that they maxed out with a pair of $5,000 contributions to Darren White, a Republican candidate running a tight race for Congress over in New Mexico’s First Congressional District. FEC records show the mighty generous $10K was delivered on March 20.

Coincidentally enough, the Republican Campaign Committee of New Mexico appears just as generous when it comes to Bee. Just six days after Pima County invested in White’s candidacy, the RCCNM sent two $5,000 checks to Bee’s campaign.

The parties would never collude to get around that pesky $10K limit, would they?

This article appears in Apr 17-23, 2008.

Getting hassled by The Man Mild-mannered reporter

4 replies on “Pima GOP”

  2. This is a silly post made by someone who is clearly trying to divide the party and create controversy. State and county parties contributing to target races within our area is nothing new and is perfectly legal. In fact, it is a common practice.

    Look at some of the contributions from 2006….

    Targeted race in Colorado:
    Arizona GOP contributed $5,000 to Rick O’Donnell for Congress in Colorado on 3/23/06, as did New Mexico and the RNC.

    Targeted race in California:
    Arizona GOP gave $5,000 to Brian Bilbray for Congress in California on 5/25/06, along with Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Utah and the RNC.

    And looking at all the contributions that were received by a race that was targeted nationally in 2006:

    New Mexico made 5 separate $1,000 contributions to the Rick Santorum for Senate campaign, along with the state parties of Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, and the RNC.

    Congressional campaigns in Arizona received contributions from half a dozen Republican state parties during the 2006 cycle. Again, this is all a perfectly legal and common way for state or local parties to support candidates with federal dollars. It has nothing to do with soft money and suggesting this is “collusion” reflects a complete ignorance of the federal campaign finance laws.

    The real question is why is Tim Bee for Congress getting more support from the New Mexico state party than he is from the one in his own home state?

  3. I wasn’t trying to divide the GOP–I reckon Republicans do a pretty good job of that on their own. I do have a hard time buying that the exchange of equal–and maximum–contributions to favored candidates in a week’s time is purely coincidental, but a little more research with the help of a fellow Practitioner of the Black Arts in New Mexico has yielded an interesting nugget of information.

    It seems that the New Mexico Republican Party has endorsed Darren White in a GOP primary rather than staying neutral. But there’s a state law in New Mexico banning political parties from giving money to candidates in competitive primaries, so they haven’t given any money to White. Of course, there’s no prohibition against Pima County wading into a competitive primary in a neighboring state.

    What was that you were saying about me dividing the GOP?

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