An Alternative title for this could be "Brown Whups Butt On Fundraising Last Quarter !"
Greetings, Gentle Readers, from California's muddiest Congressional District on Indictment Watch™ ! As you have been following along our story of the slide and fall of our retiring Republican incumbent, the Abramoff Scandal encrusted Rep. John Doolittle, you found out yesterday that there is no shortage of spare Republicans from down south and out of district, who are eyeing our Congressional seat with lust in their hearts and lumps of cash in their pockets. http://www.dailykos.com/...
The Year End Quarterly FEC Financial Report for the period of October, November, and December 2007 for John Doolittle's 2008 Campaign Donations was filed on the last day of January and has just recently come online. It shows Rep. Doolittle not only did not take in very much money in the last quarter, but is mired deeply in debt to a legal firm and made no payments to them during that quarter. He owes the lawyers 4 times as much as he raised last quarter. The debt totals and more below the fold:
Link to Doolittle's FEC financial reports documents page:
http://query.nictusa.com/... The Year End filing also shows him still owing money for "fundraising" to his wife, Julie Doolittle, with an outstanding balance of $31,471.20, and no payments being made on that debt in this timeframe.
(The current status of Rep. Doolittle's legal problems stemming from the Dept. of Justice's investigation is at a standstill because of legal challenges being brought by his lawyers against complying with document subpoenas of his office records. )
Back to the financial details:
Here is the actual document microfiche copy from the FEC if you wish to learn how to find these things. From above, you click on the 2007 " Year End" http://query.nictusa.com/...
(Before we start, warning, I am not an accountant nor do I play one on the internet. )
From this last quarter, we see that Doolittle recieved only $37,003 in contributions during this period, or about 12,000 a month. His net operating expenses were $35,616.76.
Okay, so far, don't have to be a math genius, this is not looking good.
His cash on hand is $39,381.34,
and his outstanding debt is $153, 369.11
Whoa, that's a honkin' big debt number there. Let's take a look where that's coming from.
On page 44, we see:
Sierra Dominion Financial Solutions, Inc which is his wife Julie Doolittle's "fundraising" company by which she collects 15% of every campaign donation. From previous filings we learned that Doolittle was still paying her monthly fees "owed" her from the 2006 campaign of several thousand dollars a month, after saying he would stop this practice after the last election. Sierra Dominion Financial is owed an outstanding balance of $31,471.20 and was not paid during this quarter.
(Why does Julie Doolittle "need" this money? She has a defense lawyer, too. And with creative bookeeping, campaign donations over certain limits become income become legal fee payments.)
On page 45, we see the law firm of Williams Mullen of McLean, Virginia, owed the following amounts:
Williams Mullen $ 69,392.45
Williams Mullen $ 14,251.62
Williams Mullen $ 14,532.23
and on page 46,
Williams Mullen $ 23,204.65
total debt owed for W-M= $ 121,380.95 No payments were made to Williams Mullen Law Firm this quarter.
add to that the $31,471.20 that Doolittle owes to his wife (Sierra Dominion) as a bookeeping device and it makes:
$ 152,852.15
This leaves $ 516.96 owed on other miscelaneous expenses, so I'd say that the the lawyers are the main drag on the campaign coffers.
The records also show that Doolittle did make payments to his other white collar legal defense firm, Wiley Rein and Fielding (yes, the origins of the same Fielding who is Bush's White House legal counsel ).
Paid to Wiley, Rein and Fielding Law Defense Firm this quarter:
2056.68
1000.00
2000.00
2600.80
----------
$ 7657.48
That's about one fifth of his total campaign contributions right there for the quarter.
The cost of keeping himself and Julie out of Jail from his "friendship" with jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff has finally driven Mr Doolittle into a well deserved retirement. Of course, now we are still stuck with him for 11 more months, but sooner or later, he goes away.
Doolittle seems to have made friends with the Marriott Hotel Chain and they have given him $4,600 this cycle, and a Plumber's PAC has given him some money, and United Parcel Service donated, and the Realtor's PAC is always good for some money, ( I know there is a "moving soon? call Doolittle" joke in there somewhere....) but the formerly reliable local Republicans with big $ and the lobbyists have ignored him.
In my last three diaries I have explored how Republican primary candidates for the seat have been giving him money.
In my last diary, we learned that the latest one to jump in, Doug "Beauregard" Ose, has already nearly a half million of his own pocket change tucked neatly into a dormant campaign account, just waiting to be used.
Compare this to the Democrat running in the race, Charlie Brown of Roseville, who is a true grassroots candidate. Brown, who came within 3 points of beating Doolittle in 2006 despite a voter registration percentage that favored Republicans, raised $193,435 ( ! 5 times as much as Doolittle ) during the end quarter, bringing his 2007 fundraising to almost $700,000, with $483,489. cash on hand, according to the Brown campaign and the FEC document that just came online. What is more interesting is that Brown's people say it came from nearly 10,000 donors during the year. Since this quarterly is a 183 page document compared to a 49 page document, there does seem to be more donors. http://query.nictusa.com/... And donors make motivated voters, and that is really good news for our district. http://www.charliebrownforcongress.o...