October 14, 2012

Democrats: What is Senator Welch hiding?

The state Democratic Party issues this press release:

State Republicans Pushing for More Secret Money in Politics

State Senator Jason Welch, others, display a chronic failure to
tell voters who is funding their campaigns

(Hartford, Connecticut) Republican state Senator Jason Welch, running for re-election in the 31st Senatorial District (Bristol, Harwinton, Plainville, Plymouth and Thomaston), has accepted a CEP grant for his campaign, but is refusing to disclose the names and occupations of his donors on the last two filing reports, a requirement very clearly spelled out in the CEP guidelines. 
Not only did Senator Welch—a practicing attorney—not disclose this important information in this election cycle, he also failed to disclose it in 2010. 
Is Senator Welch hiding the names of his donors from voters for a reason?  Is he just unable to follow the guidelines and practices applied to all candidates?  Or, is it both?
The CEP guidelines provide that candidates must report:  “The principal occupation of the contributor, and the name of the employer (if the contributor is unemployed, retired, a student, or a homemaker, he or she must be reported as such).” See SEEC 2012 Guide at pg. 83 (http://www.ct.gov/seec/lib/seec/2012generalelection/2012_participating_c...)
Nancy DiNardo, Chairwoman of the State Democratic Party, called for all candidates participating in CEP to fully comply with the guidelines and disclose the occupation and name of the employer for all their donors.  “It is critical that voters fully know and understand who is funding the candidates seeking their support.  The CEP was put in place to provide the citizens of our state with a level of transparency necessary for them to make informed choices at the polls. Without full disclosure, our democracy suffers.  All you have to do is turn on TV and see how the airwaves are filled with ads funded by special interest money that, under the Citizens United ruling, is now allowed to flow unchecked into our state and distort the electoral process.”
Unfortunately, Senator Welch is not the only Republican flagrantly ignoring the CEP guidelines while also accepting grant money.  A scan of the latest filing shows several Republican state Senators failing to comply: http://seec.ct.gov/ecrisreporting/SearchingCommittee.aspx
###

Copyright 2012. All rights reserved. Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Not only is Senator Welch hiding the occupations of his donors, he is trying to confuse voters who are not registered to either of the major party's by appearing on the CT Independent Party line on the ballot. Senator knows full well that the CT Independent Party is an offshoot of the Independent Party of America, an extreme right wing organization that believes in privatizing Medicare, eliminating Social Security, against contraceptives for any reason, and believes in the false notion that the female body has a secret mechanism to prevent a pregnancy in the case of "legitimate" rape. Are these the same issues that Jason Welch believes in or is he just trying to confuse voters and steal a few votes?

Joseph Mudry