Two days ago I wrote about Palin's receipt of donations from oil and gas officials in Alaska. Here's a little more about the cast of characters.
As I noted the other day, many states publish the lists of campaign contributors and other campaign finance reports online. In Alaska, this information is kept by the Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC).
Based on some comments in my original diary, I decided to try to figure out who the donors listed in Ms. Palin's report were. The first list I looked at contained names of individual donors who made contributions of $500 or over.
https://webapp.state.ak.us/...
For those identified with oil and gas, starting with A's we have Mark Allen. As noted in an article entitled "Life's sweet for Alaskan at center of corruption probes," Mark Allen is the adult son of Bill Allen, former chair of Veco, who pled to bribery and corruption charges last year. Senator Ted Stevens faces charges over allegations that he received gifts from Bill Allen.
Well, with all this talk about not including kids in assessments of candidates, why be concerned with Mark Allen? Because Bill's adult son received immunity as part of his dad's deal. And it looks like he has benefitted greatly from dad's business dealings. And because, as the article details, there are allegations of campaign law violations because when the Allen kids made contributions to campaigns, daddy reimbursed them. So Mark's contributions may well have come from cooperating criminal daddy Bill.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/...
And if spouses aren't supposed to count, maybe we shouldn't count the contributions to Palin from the spouse of Mark Allen, Jeannette Allen.
The August 18th McClatchy article also describes the history of Veco, noting that the Allens, Roger Chan and Peter Leathard owned shares in Veco directly or through trusts:
"Veco was sold last Sept. 7 to the engineering and construction firm CH2M Hill, an employee-owned company, and the formal stock-purchase agreement was filed publicly with the Securities and Exchange Commission. That document and other records connected with the sale obtained by the Daily News showed that the Allen family and two former Veco executives, Roger Chan and Peter Leathard, owned shares in Veco either directly or through trusts."
And who else is on Palin's donor list? Roger Chan and Peter Leathard. And Tom Corkran, another Veco executive named in the article.
Ralph McKee, though not named in the article, was a Veco employee too.
http://www.campaignmoney.com/...
James Slack was also a Veco employee or exec:
http://www.campaignmoney.com/...
As was Richard L. Smith:
http://www.bluehampshire.com/...
In fact, all of the donors listed on the contribution page linked above who were involved in "oil/gas extraction" were Veco employees.
It wasn't unusual for Veco executives to make contributions to candidates as part of their scheme. From a 2007 article
"....(Bill) Allen said the bonus program - in which Veco execs got money that they were to spend on political donations and, Allen said, charities - was set up by Veco exec Pete Leathard. If you ever look through old APOC records, you’ll often see five or six Veco officials giving large checks to the same candidate on the same day."
http://community.adn.com/...
Wow - so maybe Mark Allen, Jeannette Allen, Roger Chan, Peter Leathard, Tom Corkran, Val Malyneux, Ralph McKee, James Slack and Richard Smith didn't simply share the same political vision for Alaska? (Or maybe they did, but it wasn't based on political ideals...)
The history seems to have had a little recent interest. Check this out:http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2008/sep/03/buzz-around-palin-in-full-roar/
And the list of 2006 for the general election is also interesting:
https://webapp.state.ak.us/...
Ms. "I was for lobbyists before I was against them" received donations from the following lobbyists in the 2006 general election:
John Bitney
Kim Hutchinson
Francis Bickford
Don Kubley
The primary election list of donors is lots longer, and I'm running out of time to look now. But here's the link:
https://webapp.state.ak.us/...
(and yes, that list includes lobbyists too)