The question, really, isn’t difficult to understand: How do you make a living?
For most Arkansans, the answer is pretty simple: We work for it. We can easily name the people or companies that compensate us in exchange for our labors.
Politicians here in the 21st century have to reveal a lot about their finances, primarily so the Americans they’re asking to serve can get a sense of potential conflicts of interest or sources of improper influence. As private citizens, their financial affairs are nobody’s business. Once they declare themselves as candidates for public office, the responsibilities they seek necessitate a clear public understanding of their financial affairs.
Americans have gotten burned more than a few times over the years by politicians whose financial dealings influenced them in ways generally viewed as opposite of the public’s interest.
With that in mind, this week’s strange financial reporting gymnastics by Josh Mahony raises red flags. It is entirely the candidate’s responsibility to clear those up. He didn’t do a very good job of it, despite a multitude of changes to official forms required of his candidacy.
Mahony corrected information on his financial disclosures and his promoted biography as he seeks to unseat incumbent U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton in next year’s election. Cotton is a Republican seeking a second term in the Senate. Mahony is challenging him from within the Democratic Party, the same party that has spent the last two years gnashing teeth about a certain president’s failure to disclose financial information.
A Democrat-Gazette reporter asked questions about Mahony’s online biography and federal financial disclosure forms. Over the course of two days midweek, Mahony filed four amendments.
This isn’t Mahony’s first political rodeo. He ran for Congress in the 3rd District of Arkansas in 2018 in a largely self-funded effort. In 2015, he launched an unsuccessful campaign for the Democratic nomination for Washington County judge, mostly citing his involvement in nonprofit organizations as experience for the job. Even then, Mahony, of Fayetteville, was vague when speaking about his employment, citing his role as a partner in an El Dorado-based family owned natural resources management company dealing with oil, timber and natural gas.
Last week, his Senate campaign website errors involved Mahony’s work claims. The site referred to him as a “natural resources executive” and longtime business owner who “owns a natural resources company.” Mahony, though, told a reporter he is not a current natural resources executive and no longer owns a natural resources company.
“That was a clerical error,” he said.
The site now says he’s a fifth-generation Arkansan and “long-time small business owner.”
He apparently sold a “partnership interest” in a company, EAM Co. LLC, in March 2018, a business he and several cousins owned. In an interview, he declined to disclose the percentage of the business that had belonged to him. “We’re reporting everything in our financial disclosure that we’re legally obliged to,” he said.
That isn’t very comforting from a transparency standpoint.
Then there’s this from Mahony Corp. President Emon A. Mahony Jr., who declined to discuss the candidate’s performance or responsibilities at EAM Co.
“There’s no public interest in the
workings of those corporations, Emon A. Mahony Jr. said. “And if you want to ask Joshua Mahony, call him and ask him. He’s the one making the representa-. .
According to the Democrat-Gazette’s story Friday, the newspaper began asking questions after the candidate repeatedly missed deadlines for filing federally mandated disclosure forms with the Senate.
It gets messier. He failed to file key disclosures even after three 30-day extensions that ended Aug. 29. He filed it this week after the newspaper asked about the overdue information. It omitted any mention of EAM Co. and listed no bank accounts belonging to Mahony.
In response to further questions, the amendments started — add the sale of the EAM interest, include nearly $30,000 in a partnership distribution, show ownership of an experimental aircraft and a 2012 pickup truck. Then amendments to reflect a joint bank account worth thousands and joint ownership of a Mercedes previously listed as his wife’s. A third amendment includes a 1980 Fiat Spider. A fourth amendment revealed joint bank accounts of between $50,001 and $100,000 that had previously been listed as his wife’s money.
He reports no wages in 2018 or the first portion of 2019 on his Senate form. A House race form shows no earned income in 2017 either. The story said the newspaper could not determine the last time Mahony held full-time, paid employment and Mahony, in an interview, could not provide the year.
“I’m not certain. I’d have to go back and look. Frankly, I haven’t put a lot of thought into that,” he said.
We have no reason to suggest Mahony isn’t being truthful or that all these weren’t just “errors,” but his responses suggest a certain level of shade where there ought to be nothing but sunshine.
Maybe his work history doesn’t support his campaign’s attempt to paint him as experienced in the issues important to small businesses and everyday Arkansans. Or maybe he’s just really terrible at filling out paperwork and explaining himself.
Answering the question of “How do you make a living?” sure doesn’t seem so complicated, and isn’t, for most Arkansans.
And Mahony wants to go to the Senate to write legislation?
Novelist Herman Wouk once said, “Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today.”
Mahony’s responses this week suggest a similar evaluation might apply to some financial disclosures.
WHAT’S THE POINT?
A lack of details and clarity raise concerns about the candidacy of Josh Mahony for Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate.