Jon Husted CAMPAIGN-FINANCE REPORTS

...and the 2007 "Best Effort" award goes to..........

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Big donors well-known, so why the mystery?

Columbus Dispatch, February 17, 2008
By Jim Siegel

One would be hard pressed to find any politico around Capitol Square who doesn't know of David Brennan, the Akron industrialist, philanthropist and Ohio's top charter-school operator.

He and his wife gave nearly $200,000 to Republican candidates last year. He wears a conspicuous big white hat and runs a company called White Hat Management. He is chairman of two private holding companies, Brennan Industrial Group and the Brenlin Group, that have helped him earn millions.

He is no longer an active attorney.

But in their 2007 campaign-finance statements, Sen. Keith L. Faber, R-Celina, and Rep. Jim Carmichael, R-Wooster, listed Brennan as a self-employed attorney, while Rep. Mark Wagoner, R-Toledo, listed Brennan's former law firm as his employer.

House candidate Tom Whiston listed Brennan as retired. House candidate Dick Hammersmith left Brennan's employer column blank. Rep. Jay Hottinger, R-Newark, called him an "industrialist," which elections officials say is not specific enough.

State law requires that when someone donates $100 or more, the candidate must report that person's proper employer or business. But violating the law has no consequences.

Even for the biggest givers, no part of campaign-finance disclosure is messed up more often than donors' employers, said J. Curtis Mayhew, the Ohio secretary of state's campaign-finance administrator for nine years.

"That's the one where you'll see the most variables from committee to committee," Mayhew said. "There have been times folks have said, 'We didn't report it because they didn't provide it,' even though it's someone everybody knows."

When lawmakers want to increase the campaign-contribution limit, such as in 2005 when it went from $2,500 to $10,000, a common supporting argument is that all money is fully disclosed.

A key part of that disclosure is determining what company a donor is tied to -- not only so the public knows exactly who is bankrolling various campaigns, but also to follow new laws limiting donations from those who get state contracts.

Candidates also can mark "best effort" if they make at least two attempts to learn the donor's identity, one of which must be in writing.

The Dispatch examined all 2007 donations of $1,000 or more to individual campaigns, as a way to limit the sample to contributors who are seriously engaged in the political process or seriously interested in a particular candidate.

Of the 2,139 donations of that size, 16 percent (334) did not list the person's employer. This includes 93 listings of "best effort," 57 instances where nothing was filled in, and several vague entries such as "attorney" or "self-employed."

A common criticism from Mayhew and others is that it's too easy to avoid disclosure. Requiring more proof that a candidate really made a "best effort" or forcing the forfeiture of money if an employer is not determined would put some teeth in the law, he said.

"We do some follow-up, but it's very difficult to nail down," Mayhew said. "All we can do is say, 'Are you sure that's what you want to say?' And most times, they say yes."

More than half of the 2007 "best effort" listings came from House Speaker Jon Husted, R-Kettering. They included John McConnell of Worthington Industries and William Rumpke, president of Rumpke, a Cincinnati waste-management company.

"I was not aware that we had that," Husted said. "That's unacceptable. I take responsibility for it, and we'll go find them and amend the report."

Rep. Armond D. Budish of Beachwood, a top Democratic fundraiser, misfired on the employers of 43 donors, including Morton Weisberg, CEO of the nursing-home operator Multicare Management, and developer Albert Ratner, part of the politically generous Ratner family of Cleveland.

"I don't know why those were blank. I gave that information to my lawyer," Budish said of Weisberg and Ratner. On others, he said, "Unfortunately, when people send in checks, sometimes they don't give us that information."

A day later, Budish said his campaign was filing an amended report to fill in the missing employers.

With the availability of information on the Internet, Catherine Turcer said, there is no excuse for candidates not to report where big donors are employed. The director of the Money in Politics Project for Ohio Citizen Action said the problem lingers because candidates face no real consequences.

"How do you figure out who is affecting policy if you can't figure out who is giving the money?" Turcer said.

jsiegel@dispatch.com

With so much information on the Internet, there is no excuse for candidates who don't report where big donors are employed, said Catherine Turcer of Ohio Citizen Action. The problem lingers because candidates face no consequences.