Last month I did a little monologue about money in politics before the donation section, so maybe I’ll do that again here.
As you know, one of the main issues for me in my run for County Commission is the influence of money in politics even in a local race like mine. My other big issue is how the County Mayor seems to favor development for the sake of developers. Those two issues collide in the amount of money donated by developers, builders, and others with real estate interests to County Commission candidates. And I come with an example.
I’ll spare the actual name involved, but there’s a developer in the area who donates a considerable sum to Commission candidates. I did a quick look at the financial disclosures for the Republican primary candidates who ran for Commission seats in the March election (not Democrats, of course). Out of a total of eight candidates in six races, this developer gave money to four of them. The total amount he gave was $4500. In my district, he gave to both candidates. He also gave $1000 to a candidate who had no primary or general election opponent.
This is on my mind because, well, it’s an issue I ran on, so I care about this stuff. And I’m pretty sure this one donor has given more to these candidates than I have spent on my entire campaign to this point. But, additionally, today is the deadline not just for all the federal and state candidates, but also for me and the rest of the Commission Candidates. We’ll have to have our next round of disclosures in by July 11th, I think. And I’ll be paying attention for this developer’s name. I suspect I’ll see it some more.
Anyway, on to the donations.
I gave $100 to the East Tennessee branch of Indivisible. They’re doing work around the County, including for me, trying to help get Democratic candidates elected.
The 11 yo Madkiddo had a birthday this month and we did $25 to one of those Facebook donation things that she set up. The Wounded Warrior project.
And, it looks like I accidentally set up my $10 donation last month to Cal Cunningham (Democrat running for Senate in NC) as recurring, so that went out again. So, another $10 there, but I’ve turned off the recurring status for that donation now. Not that I won’t donate to him again, I don’t know, but I like to do these each month depending on how I feel at the end of the month.
In addition to those, here are the donations I’m going to make today.
I’m going to give $20 to Joe Biden and $20 to the Warren Democrats.
I remember the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearings and I remember how Susan Collins made a big point of saying that Kavanaugh believes in stare decisis and that’s one of the reasons she voted to confirm. We knew she was full of crap and now the decision on the Louisiana abortion law confirmed it. Kavanaugh voted with the conservatives on that decision to let the very restrictive abortion law stand. Collins needs to go, so $20 to Sara Gideon.
I’ll give $10 to the TNDP and $20 to the KCDP to round out my $100.
See you next time!