(Another?)Ohio GOP Congressman caught red-handed
Mon Feb 11, 2008 at 05:53:29 AM PDT
(Disclaimer: I am not a resident of OH-03, but a friend of mine, Jane Mitakides is running against Mike Turner, so I very much like to see him defeated)
It sometimes seems to me that lost in the midst of our Presidential primary debate (as important as that is) is the fact that there is another branch of government that is equally (if not more so) accountable to We the People - Congress. Indeed, even while Clinton and Obama, McCain and Huckabee clash in the national press, the proverbial "conga beat of corruption" continues on Capitol Hill and across the country. The latest example of a corrupt Republican caught in the act is Ohio Congressman Mike Turner (OH-03, consisting of Dayton and surrounding areas). What is remarkable about Turner is not that he is corrupt, but how deeply he appears to have stuck his hand in the proverbial cookie jar.
Read on to find out more about Turner, and how deeply he is entrenched in the Party of Bob Ney, Tom Noe and Ken Blackwell...
First, a little background on Turner. He served as Mayor of Dayton from 1993 to 2001, before he was voted out of office by constituents angered over redevelopment problems. Luckily for Turner, the Republicans in Ohio soon gerrymandered the Congressional districts, and President Bush gave Dayton Democrat Tony Hall (an easy winner in the old OH-03 for 24 years) a position with the United Nations just months before the election. Turner won easily over an underfunded Democrat, and won in 2006 with 58% due to a fractured Democratic Party (the original nominee dropped out less than three months before the election when she was arrested on domestic abuse charges).
Turner's district leans slightly to the Republican Party on the Presidential level; it gave Bush 54% of the vote to 45% for Kerry, and roughly the same margin in 2000 over Gore. However, in 2006 it gave Gubernatorial nominee Ted Strickland 56% of the vote, so it is not inhospitable for a Democratic nominee.
Apart from his solidly Republican positions on the issues (he continues to support Bush on the Iraq War, opposes stem-cell research and voted for CAFTA in a district rapidly losing industrial strength), it also appears that Turner is a corrupt hack, in the finest tradition of fellow Ohioans Bob Ney (who is currently serving a 30-month sentence in jail for helping Jack Abramoff) and Ken Blackwell (remember him? He's the guy who installed the Diebold voting machines for Ohio in 2004 as Secretary of State...while being Bush's campaign co-chair in the state).
Here's the evidence from today's Dayton Daily News:
Questions raised about branding contract for U.S. Rep. Mike Turner's wife
DAYTON — The Dayton Development Coalition, which lobbies the Miami Valley congressional delegation for federal funds for local projects, has paid a marketing firm owned by the wife of U.S. Rep. Mike Turner more than $300,000 so far for its work on a $1.5 million regional branding campaign that resulted in the slogan, "Get Midwest."
The coalition expects to pay an as-yet-undetermined additional sum to Lori Turner's company, the Turner Effect, as the campaign enters its second half.Past and present coalition officials say the Turner Effect was hired in 2006 without competitive bidding simply because it was the best choice among local companies.
But two congressional watchdog groups in Washington said the situation creates, at best, an appearance of conflict of interest. "There is an appearance of impropriety," said Naomi Seligman-Steiner, spokeswoman for the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "It's not illegal, but it is problematic."
And here's another article the DDN published today on the same subject:
[Lori] Turner says she has turned down clients because of ties to her husband
...But Lori Turner didn't have any qualms when the Dayton Development Coalition chose the Turner Effect as the lead contractor on a $1.5 million branding campaign for the region that resulted in the slogan, "Get Midwest." The coalition of local business, government and educational leaders sets development priorities and lobbies members of Congress, including Mike Turner, for federal funds to carry them out...
...Most of the coalition's trustees have contributed to Mike Turner's political campaigns, and $750,000 of the $1.5 million for the branding campaign came from a foundation controlled by coalition trustee and Turner contributor Clayton Mathile. According to Federal Election Commission records, the current coalition board members have donated a total of at least $76,200 to Mike Turner's campaigns since 2002. Mathile alone has given Turner's campaigns more than $10,000.
"You see those close connections and it's very obvious what this organization's trying to do," said Craig Holman of the nonprofit Public Citizen's Congress Watch. "This is an organization that's trying to funnel money to Mike Turner and they're doing it through his spouse's business."
Unfortunately, the DDN is on friendly terms with Turner, and has endorsed him in all three of his Congressional races, so they don't give the reader the whole story. Here's some more information for you:
*Between 1998 and 2004, billionaire Republican Clayton Mathile and his wife contributed $614,000 to a secret Montgomery County Republican Party "slush" fund. The party fought to conceal names of donors for several years.
(DDN, July 1 2007)
*Following subpoena of the records of the secret fund in 2005, Montgomery County GOP Chair and then-State Senator Jeff Jacobson wrote a letter to his colleagues, attempting to explain the use of the money, which by law could only be used for party operating expenses. Jacobson explained that Mike Turner’s congressional primary bid was "supported" by this secret fund, and included hiring of consultant Jim Nathanson.(Nathanson maintained his offices adjacent to Turner’s in a Dayton office building.)
(DDN, August 25 2004)
*At the time the secret fund was employing Nathanson to help Turner, Nathanson was in turn retaining Kyle S. Sisk and Brett T. Buerck, whose memo detailing how to "launder campaign money" was leaked to the press in 2004. Part of the laundering scheme was to help Jacobson elected president of the Ohio senate.
(Columbus, OH Dispatch, August 14 2004)
*Jacobson acknowledged that he had used the Montgomery County Republican Party’s operating account [which included the secret Mathile funds] to hire senior Turner consultant Jim Nathanson, who in turn hired the authors of the laundering memo. Asked why he had repeatedly lied about hiring Nathanson to hire Buerck and Sisk, Jacobson said, "I am a jerk... I’m sorry I was cute."
(Cleveland Plain Dealer, June 30 2004)
*The fund was outlawed, and Jacobson stepped down as GOP county chairman. (DDN, June 28 2007)
*A few days later, Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner (a Democrat) exposed Mathile and the other donors to the secret fund by releasing documents, ending an investigation initially begun by Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. Mathile declined comment. (DDN, July 1 2007)
Now we get to the DDN's report today. Last month, Mathile gave $750,000 to what became the $1.5 million project called "Get Midwest", which in part was designed to lobby members of Congress to send money to Dayton (part of Mike Turner's district and his hometown). "Get Midwest" immediately awarded a no-bid $1.5 million contract to Lori Turner’s wife. Lori’s company, The Turner Effect, is valued at less than $50,000 and generates not a cent of business or personal income, according to Turner’s 2007 House financial disclosure form (this via the FEC's website). The website for her company is The Turner Effect, and if you look at the site it clearly offers government expertise as part of its abilities. Gee, I wonder where Lori Turner gets her expertise from...?
To sum up the above information, here's how things stand now:
- Mike Turner is not only closely associated with a massive money laundering scandal that started in his district, but strongly benefited from it through donations to his campaigns for Congress.
- Mike Turner's wife has received a massive no-bid contract from the same people who created the "slush fund" to benefit Turner and Jacobson.
(By the way, Turner has also donated $51,000 of his campaign treasury to Turner Effects from 2003 through 2006. See Citizens for Ethics Report on Congressional Donations To Relatives )
- Mike Turner deserves closer scrutiny - not just from the local media, but from the DCCC and we in the blogosphere.
OH-03 is a low-cost media market (Dayton is its only area to run TV ads, and it's ridiculously cheap to run ads there), so a decent candidate could raise $500-600,000 and easily be in contention against Turner, particularly if We the People keep the pressure on the local media to continue reporting on Turner's ethics problems.
There are three candidates for the Democrats in 2008, with 2004 nominee Jane Mitakides the likely candidate (she has been endorsed by all four county Democratic organizations, as well as by the DDN). Her website (which is under construction) is Jane Mitakides for Congress. Since Jane is an old friend of mine, I will attempt to get her "in touch" with the blogosphere more in the future.
Hopefully, if you've made it all the way through this article, you'll agree with me that Mike Turner deserves to be defeated in 2008. And, more importantly, I hope that when the great struggle in our Presidential primary is over people like Mike Turner get the scrutiny he so richly merits.
Note: Below are the links to the Dayton Daily News articles referenced above.
June 28, 2007 Article in DDN
Second part of the June 28, 2007 DDN expose
Editorial from July 3, 2007 DDN referencing the scandal
August 25, 2004 DDN article
The Cleveland and Columbus papers unfortunately keep their archives closed (unless you want to pay for an article); luckily, I was able to find the articles elsewhere.
The FEC report can be found at Open Secrets Copy of Turner's 2007 Form , see page 2. (Please note that Adobe Acrobat is required to access it, although the material itself is public property).
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