Ethics Commission clears Koster, Hatfield
The Missouri Ethic Commission just confirmed that they voted to dismiss three complaints filed against state Sen. Chris Koster, now the Democratic nominee for attorney general, and the Economic Growth Council, a campaign committee that directed tens of thousands of dollars to Koster via a pass-through system of legislative committees.
The council’s treasurer is one of Koster’s closest friends, veteran Democrat and lawyer Chuck Hatfield.
Here’s the commission’s decision, made during a meeting Tuesday and made public today.
Here’s Koster’s response:
“Today’s action by the Missouri Ethics Commission puts to rest what has been a political stunt all along. While welcome, this ruling is not surprising. The campaign has always acted under the guidance of the Commission and within the law.
“As yesterday’s primary results show, voters are sick and tired of politics and partisan games like this politically-motivated ethics complaint. Now that this sideshow is over and the primary done, I look forward to campaigning across Missouri as the Democratic nominee for Attorney General and talking about who has the law enforcement credentials to be our next chief law enforcement officer.”
At least two of the complaints had been filed by his Democratic and Republican rivals — state Reps. Margaret Donnelly and Jeff Harris, and state Sen. Mike Gibbons, R-Kirkwood — or their allies.
This is just further evidence that the Ethics commission is entirely powerless at addressing violations of campaign law in this state!
Bad call my friends.
Hey Ziggy, do you know what you call it when the mob refuses to accept a finding of “innocent?”
A witch hunt.
Sober up. Dust yourself off. Move on. Your dirty trick didn’t work, and the Ethics Commission refuses to play along.
Already dusted off.
The reality here is that the Ethics Commission is full of a bunch of fools that wouldn’t know how to move forward with charges if they wanted to. Anyone want to count to see how many complaints have advanced since Kilgore became chair?
I can’t speak from personal experience about the ethics commission. But if they are anything like the Office of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel, which supposedly disciplines attorneys who steal from their clients or commit other ethical breeches, ziggy’s description fits perfectly. Try this one: An attorney drains a multi-million dollar trust fund, and lends the money to another one of her clients, without any authorization from the beneficiaries. (The funder of the trust is dead.) Her other client ends up being a con artists, is indicted by the feds, and she is an “unnamed co-conspirator” in the indictment. Yet in all this, the attorneys who are charged with evaluating misconduct by attorneys (is there a joke there, perhaps?) find “no ethical violation” with that. It makes my head spin. If anybody but an attorney did the same thing, he’d be in prison.
What is clear here is the accusations were politically motivated and the Ethic Committee agreed.
Koster raised his money in the same way as Nixon, Hulshof, Steelman, and so many others raised thier money. Both Harris and Donnelly used committees to collect over the limit contributions, but they do not like to talk about that. And guess what, none of them did anything illegal.
The average voter does not know, or care to know, the ins and outs of campaign finance laws. All of the attacks tried to paint a picture which was just not accurate. Lucky the voters saw through it and got it right.
These continued attacks are without any basis and appear to be nothing more then sour grapes.
“the accusations were politically motivated”
All accusations are politically motivated. There are no investigations without complaints and the only people motivated to complain are political rivals. The issue is whether the investigation itself is fair, honest and sufficiently aggressive. I don’t know what the truth is here.
“Lucky the voters saw through it and got it right.”
You answered this when you said “The average voter does not know, or care to know…”
Well what a surprise huh? Koster did absolutely NOTHING wrong! But the lies and the innuendo of Donnelly and Harris nearly succeeding in scuttling Koster’s campaign. Now that Koster has been utterly and completely exhonerated it would only be right for those swine to apologize, but I ain’t gonna hold my breath.
The best revenge was the vote total last night! Congratulations on yet ANOTHER victory Senator Koster! Can’t wait to have you as Attorney General.
The voters didn’t see through anything. All they saw was the first name on the ballot and the candidate who was on the air the most. The only good thing about this is we don’t have to hear any more from Jeff Harris’s blog kids (Yes you, Shecky and Jessica) about how dreamy Jeff Harris is. You kept telling us Donnelly was the spoiler. Bottom line: you lost (big) and Donnelly lost too. Harris was never a contender but he did change the outcome. Congratulations Shecky and Jessica. Way to go.
Over 227,000 Real Democrats saw Koster for what he actually is and sent a resounding message AGAINST him. Partisan games? Politically motivated ethics complaint? Smells like the same republican Koster to me.
A pox on the Ethics Commisision. They gave us this mess in 2004 when they OK’d Holden’s use of committees to funnel money despite it’s being glaringly in violation of the intent and letter of the law. As a result we ended up with the offensive excuse that “everybody does it.” So rather than fix a broken system, it was allowed to corrode still further.
Flash forward to 2008 and Chris Koster bends the law further still, a fact that not even he denies. The toothless and hapless commissioners again fail to act — perhaps knowing the limits would be gone in just a few short weeks, so why take a stand on anything? — and Koster is somehow presented as vindicated despite the facts and what everyone but his most ardent supporters agree smelled to high heaven.
It is shameful and appalling, and now with the limits gone soon, we will see the Wild West take shape in Missouri. Billionaires sponsoring legislative candidates to pass their boondoggles and line their pockets, corporations manipulating our elections to erode regulations and enforcement. And the people of Missouri left even more powerless.
Perhaps the good news, if it can be called that, is that at least the pretense and charade of the enforcement of ethics will no longer exist. We will know exactly what we are getting. Perhaps seeing the raw sewage in the streets will finally be enough to get the voters of Missouri to stand up again and put some real reforms into place.