Yeah, unless Cruz was a serial vote misser like Rubio throughout his career, I don’t see what is gained by bringing it up.
I think Beto should hammer Cruz for his endless lies. This is Texas after all, and your word not being your bond is pretty damning in traditional Texas culture, which is where I assume Cruz has the majority of his support. Take this hugely popular commercial from a few years ago as a data point. Who is out of step with Texans again, Mr Cruz?
lol
FFS, there is no line they won’t cross to achieve their ends.
State’s rights, right?
In theory I’m not opposed to the concept on it’s face.
Not sure right this moment is the time to fix it just so Trump can pardon everyone, but I think I lean towards the 5th Amendment on this one.
It just amazes me that any woman or POC would even consider voting for the GOP at this point in time.
There are a number of individuals from within both groups who are pro-life, pro-gun and don’t want the money they’ve earned to go to kids to play in college or healthcare that doesn’t benefit them or some regulations that hurt their business. The fact is the Democrats are not a perfect choice or even a good choice for a lot of people, they’re just typically better than Republicans but while the moderate positions might appeal the left part of the Democrats wants to take over.
I went to a public high school in a low income part of a small city. I had a buddy in high school who would talk about how he was a millionaire, lived in a giant house, owned 22 cars including two dragsters, rode thoroughbreds, was a motocross racer, blah blah blah. I liked the guy, and he wasn’t really a braggart, but I was consistently annoyed by his penchant for storytelling and exaggeration… until I visited his place up on the mountain and discovered that everything he said was true.
I feel like Michael Avenetti is like that. He makes wild preposterous claims that turn out to have quite a bit of validity. I say this with considerable trepidation and not a little horror, but he’s probably going to be President someday.
This is pretty amazing. The Republican candidate for governor in Pennsylvania just filed a quarterly campaign finance disclosure in which he reports he lost $630k of his campaign money because he invested it.
Apparently that’s kosher: You can invest your campaign money and keep the gains. So really, running for office is just a scam to get investment capital.
There were a couple of local hip would-be politicians in the last few election cycles that accepted donations in Bitcoin. I’ve wondered if they only spent US dollars in their campaigns, kept the Bitcoins, cashed out when Bitcoin value skyrocketed, and kept the gains. If that did happen, would that be a violation of campaign finance laws?
IANAL, but I’m guessing the answer is ‘no’. If investing your campaign funds for personal gain is so legal that this guy is happy to report the losses, then it must be very legal indeed.
The investment options for campaign funds are not limited to simple banking accounts, but they are nevertheless highly regulated, eg money markets, diversified mutual funds, municipal bonds, Treasury bills, etc. And those funds don’t disappear, any gains must be returned to the campaign fund with limits on how they are spent.
As for Bitcoin: campaigns can accept and even buy bitcoins, but the bitcoins remain campaign funds and cannot be used for personal expenses. Furthermore, they can’t buy things with bitcoins, so any bitcoins must be liquidated before they are spent. In other words, a campaign can gamble with Bitcoin, but the candidate will not personally be enriched by any of the gains.
Thanks, magnet, that makes sense. What happens if a campaign ends and there’s still money in the campaign fund? Let’s say this was a candidate unaffiliated with a political party, like someone running for Park Board or Dogcatcher.
(This is hypothetical, I’m not, uh, asking for a friend.)
Leftover funds must be donated to charity, a political party, other candidates (within limits) or returned to donors.
Given those options, leftover funds are rare…
Is this true at the state level as well? Or does te FEC regulate state elections as well as Federal ones?