On Saturday the Boston Globe published an article suggesting that the United States Attorney’s Office may be looking for a way to indict the just-resigned head of the State Police Association of Massachusetts for “true source” violations of state campaign finance law. Can this be true? If so, Mr. U.S. Attorney, do I have a case for you!
The story was State police union president Pullman resigns amid new federal probe, by Andrea Estes and Matt Rocheleau. It reports that Matt Pullman, president of “the powerful State Police Association of Massachusetts, known by its acronym SPAM” resigned amid speculation that the U.S. Attorney’s office is investigating Pullman and the union for “possible illegal reimbursement of campaign donations by union members.” Pullman gave about $30,000 and the union about $26,500 to candidates from 2008 through 2017. The violation is that the union may have reimbursed union executive board members for contributions they made to state political committees. The Globe: “It is illegal for anyone to reimburse donors or give them money to make donations because it disguises the true donor.”
“True donor!” Where have I heard a phrase like that before? I remember now, it’s from the Office of Campaign and Political Finance’s Disposition Agreement with Families for Excellent Schools where the agency found that FESA had made contributions to Great Schools Massachusetts “in a manner that disguises the true source of its contributions.” OCPF forced FESA to disclose the “true sources” of – wait for it – not a few thousand dollars but over $15 million! Not only that, but in separate cases OCPF also found that Strong Economy for Growth violated the true source law in contributing to Questions 2 and 4 to the tune of $1.25 million and the Horse Racing and Jobs and Education Committee violated the true source law on Question 1 with over $1.6 million of donations, most of it from foreign accounts.
In fact, Mr. U.S. Attorney, three of the four ballot 2016 questions in Massachusetts were determined by OCPF to have been infected by illegal “true source” violations. It’s not a new story either – if you’d like, I can show you how Stand for Children ran the exact same scam in 2011 and 2012, to the tune of another $800,000 plus.
And “the powerful State Police Association of Massachusetts, known by its acronym SPAM”? Nothing but Joe Bag O’Donuts. If you want powerful just check out the names of the oligarchs OCPF ordered to take the walk of shame after 2016 – the richest and most powerful plutocrats in Massachusetts, California, Pennsylvania, Connecticut (oxy baron Jonathon Sackler), and even – Arkansas!
So Mr. U.S. Attorney if you are going after Pullman and SPAM for true source violations, you really have to go after the givers to Families for Excellent Schools, the Horse Racing Jobs Committee, Strong Economy for Growth, and Stand for Children.
Otherwise people may suspect that the government has one set of rules for the jamokes of the world, and another set of rules for the rich.
“We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” – Louis Brandeis
[Full disclosure: as an educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money, not education.]