Campaign leftovers

Saturday, October 27, 2012

— Friends and I were wondering the other day exactly what happens to all the campaign contributions raised by an Arkansas political candidate after the election fog clears, or when the officeholder becomes term-limited.

Can they use several thousand (or more) leftover dollars for two balmy weeks in the Caribbean, or their child’s college tuition, or perhaps even a getaway to Vegas?

Er, not hardly, says Graham Sloan, who’s director of the Arkansas Ethics Commission. In fact, there’s a specific formula of sorts for how the leftover money in a campaign treasury can be used.

And it goes like this.

If I’m in a public office that pays a salary of oh, let’s say $100,000, and I’m term-limited, I’m allowed to keep an amount equal to that salary in a campaign account for up to 10 years. I also am allowed to spend up to that amount on legitimate expenses of operating my office until I leave office.

So when I leave office, if my campaign fund (as Mike the Grand Elected and Exalted Poobah) exceeds $100,000, those remaining carryover funds may be kept in my carryover account for up to 10 years and so noted on my financial disclosure form to be filed at least once a year.

Should I decide to run for dogcatcher during those 10 years, I can transfer the carryover funds to my new campaign.

If not, I have the decade to do one of five things with the donated money: Give it to a nonprofit 501(c)3 organization; refund the contributions to their donors; hand the balance over it to the state treasury; give it to a political party (or caucus) or to a city.

“A candidate who ends an election with funds remaining can keep an amount equal to the annual salary of the office sought and use those funds to pay reasonable officeholder expenses,” Sloan emphasized. “Those expenses might be a fax machine or travel expenses.”

But beyond that, it’s either save it for a decade to use for another possible campaign, or pick from one of the five specific choices.

I’m a bit surprised in this day and time that some ethically challenged, term-limited officeholder hasn’t pushed the envelope by using $60,000 or so in his carryover campaign funds to purchase a “necessary” new Lincoln Continental in order to do his job for Arkansas taxpayers. Just kiddin’.

More unfair light

I cringed a big ol’ cringe the other day after reading about the remarks and actions of Freeland Dunscombe, a rabble-rousing, pot-stirring barber in my hometown of Harrison who’s running for justice of the peace in Boone County.

While this candidate, an independent, certainly is free to express his views and political opinions, his claim of ongoing “white genocide” in America, and his willingness in recent years to address gatherings of the Ku Klux Klan (even though he says he’s not a member) only help reinforce the century-old stereotype of this wonderful community as somehow endorsing bigotry.

I know better. The weekly AM radio program he hosts also only reinforces his white nationalist beliefs.

The regrettable truth is that nearly every community has its Freeland Dunscombes. I witnessed racism at its ugliest through one incident in bucolic and high-dollar Red Bank, N.J., where most black residents still live on one side of the tracks.

And once more for the record, my friends, Thomas Robb, the infamous Klansman, does not live in Harrison. He has always resided in Zinc, about 20 miles up the road. When the Zinc post office closed years back, the Harrison office began handling that hamlet’s mail. Hence, the serious (yet understandable) mistake that Harrison is a headquarters of the Klan.

Dunscombe happens to be among those who put a face to this species of wrongheaded thinking, particularly when he seeks an office of public trust.

I also know how hard Harrison has worked in recent years (and through its decade-long community task force on tolerance) to aggressively dispel a terrible and flagrant incidence of racism. No one feels worse about that than the vast majority of Harrison residents today.

From all I hear, the minority residents who have moved into Harrison of late have been not only accepted but embraced by the overwhelming majority of folks there. I suspect that’s just what each of them would say to anyone who asks.

But it takes only one candidate like Dunscombe to make headlines and thereby reignite the stories that seem to continually and unfairly paint this beautiful and peaceful community in a bad light.

My guess is that Mr. Dunscombe’s opponent, a rational, reasonable Republican realtor named Ann Kimes, will win this District 4 justice of the peace seat in a landslide, as well she should, especially since she already has served on the quorum court for years.

An unmistakable rejection of this man’s message should be sent at the local polls come November 6. I’m just sorry to see this ugly beast yet again rear its head in this Ozarks community of 13,000 that I know firsthand is home to so many very good and caring people.

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Mike Masterson’s column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at [email protected].

Editorial, Pages 17 on 10/27/2012