Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance’s Paul Craney wrote what may seem to be a defense of Senator Ryan Fattman from an Office of Campaign and Political Finance investigation. It’s more a guilt letter because, you see, it is Mass Fiscal itself that has screwed Senator Fattman.
Mr. Craney’s piece in Commonwealth Magazine is titled Fattman Case Deserves Fair, Clear ‘Public Resolution. He is arguing that Senator Fattman’s case should be wrapped up with a Public Resolution Letter, the least serious of the three actions OCPF could take. Even if Senator Fattman deserves a lesser punishment though, Mr. Craney and Mass Fiscal screwed him out of it by the Mass Fiscal Precedent!
And what is the Mass Fiscal Precedent? This: you negotiate a public resolution letter with OCPF and then refuse to comply, understanding that OCPF lacks further enforcement power.
The Mass Fiscal Precedent was established in 2016. OCPF investigated Mass Fiscal’s shady fundraising and concluded, very narrowly, that a single dark money donor must be disclosed. And Mass Fiscal simply refused to comply and is still in defiance almost five years later. Here’s what I wrote about the Mass Fiscal Precedent:
The practical effect of MassFiscal’s interpretation is that parties may ignore outcomes they do not like. MassFiscal’s noncompliance means that Public Resolution Letters are rendered nullities for enforcement purposes. Given that a Disposition Agreement is also a “voluntary agreement” MassFiscal’s defiance doesn’t leave much option but for OCPF to refer matters to the Attorney General whenever a party like MassFiscal refuses to comply, and referral to the AG is just not going to happen often. That is a terrible situation for OCPF and for the rule of law. But it’s The MassFiscal Precedent.
. . .
If I was still an attorney and I had a client ordered to disclose dark money donors by Public Resolution Letter or Disposition Agreement, unless I thought it would go to the AG, my advice would be: Blow off OCPF! It’s the MassFiscal Precedent!
Senator Fattman should really be ticked at Mass Fiscal since OCPF almost has to send a serious case to the Attorney General because the Mass Fiscal Precedent says if you don’t like the outcome with OCPF, simply blow it off!
If I was Senator Fattman, I’d be pissed off—at Mass Fiscal!
“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.” – Justice Louis D. Brandeis
[Full disclosure: as an educator in the UMass system, I am a union member. I write about dark money (and other things)].