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Headline RSS FeedAli Hasan in hot water over campaign contributions
September 30, 2008 —
Come on, Ali Hasan, with all that money coming into your campaign from legal sources – namely your family’s deep coffers … and in record amounts – why do you feel the need to accept campaign donations from questionable sources in your state House run?
A colleague of mine at a site I write for called the Colorado Independent dropped this bombshell Tuesday afternoon: a story about a statewide campaign watchdog group, Colorado Ethics Watch, calling on Hasan to return contributions from two potentially illegal sources last month.
Hasan, a Republican Beaver Creek resident running against incumbent Democrat Christine Scanlan for the state House District 56 seat that represents the Vail Valley, has already set the record for money raised and spent in an attempt to get into the State Legislature. But apparently all the cash coming in from his own coffers (his father, Malik, made millions in managed health care) is not enough.
To quote the Colorado Independent: “According to Hasan’s mid-September campaign report, Nevada Cancer Centers, a private oncology practice located in Las Vegas, Nev., gave a cool grand to the campaign on Sept. 5. Trouble is that’s $600 over the legal limit — if it was a legal gift, which is in dispute. According to Nevada Secretary of State records, the cancer center is a corporation from which a campaign contribution is illegal.”
“On the same day the Nevada Cancer Center money was deposited, H. E. Whitlock, LLC, gave an $800 gift — possibly twice the allowable amount — again if it’s even allowable at all. The Colorado Secretary of State has no listing for a Limited Liability Company (LLC) of the same name as the incorporated Pueblo construction firm, H.E. Whitlock, Inc. Groups organized as LLCs can make political contributions of up to $400 from each LLC director under the same legal limits as individuals. Corporations cannot give at all.”
Ouch, it’s bad enough local voters – even in a place dripping with as much money as Vail and Beaver Creek – were appalled at the amount of cash being dropped on a state House race, but now it seems as if some of that money was ill-gotten. Check out these numbers from the CI story:
"The flamboyant Hasan, who vowed celibacy through Election Day, is running the richest statehouse race in Colorado. Since our reporting earlier this month that pegged his coffers at $191,000, he’s raised an additional $90,000 in the last two weeks taking his war chest to an astronomical $281,000 — the most spent on a statehouse seat in modern memory.”
Could this be a case of the inexperience of Hasan's campaign manager, Kaye Ferry?
Hasan sent an e-mail Tuesday afternoon saying a comment was on its way. Scanlan had this to say: "Given that this is pretty much a self-funded race on his part, I guess he hasn’t had to really learn the fund-raising rules, has he?”
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