Ray Miller – poster boy for how not to follow campaign finance laws…
The saga of the Senate Minority Leader Ray Miller’s campaign finance reports has been one covered here several times in the past, from media releases from Senator Teresa Fedor back in March of 2008 urging Miller to be audited to questions about hotel bills for me raised questions as to the judgment of the Democrats in Ohio’s Senate when they unanimously picked Miller to be the Minority Leader over Fedor knowing that Miller had previous campaign finance issues.
Now something is finally being done, with a nod to Modern Esquire comes this Columbus Dispatch article that in part states:
The secretary of state’s office and the Elections Commission have spent years trying to get Miller to file a complete report. The commission fined Miller $1,500 a year ago after the veteran senator failed to submit six years worth of campaign finance reports.
Miller blamed bad record-keeping by his past treasurer and lost paperwork when he changed locations of his private office.Among the evidence submitted Friday, the secretary of state’s office says Miller has not verified almost 40 checks issued from his campaign to himself totaling $16,207. Several other checks also do not have appropriate documentation.
“Rather than submitting receipts for some of the expenses, the committee submitted handwritten notes describing Sen. Miller’s expenses. The handwritten notes are not a valid form of verification,” the complaint said.
Miller also is accused of failing to reconcile credit card purchases paid by the committee, and appears to have double-reimbursed himself for some expenses.
Modern asks some valid questions:
When will Chris Redfern or Capri Cafaro ask for Miller to resign? When will someone in the MSM ask them to distinguish between the two? I don’t think I’m going out too far on a limb to call Miller’s violations the worst violations of Ohio’s campaign finance laws. Six years of violations… that’s the entire time Miller’s been in the State Senate.
Seriously, Ohio Democratic Party, this Ray Miller story isn’t going away no matter how much you wish it. It needs to be dealt with. This is simply embarassing how long Miller has been allowed to skate by on this.
I don’t think Modern is going too far out on a limb at all, I believe Senator Ray Miller should reflect on what he stated about former Attorney General Marc Dan and take some of his own advice to heart:
“I think it is in the best interest of Marc, the people of the state of Ohio and the Democratic Party that he resign.”
Physically, Ray Miller reminds me of Roland Burris. Ethically, Ray Miller reminds me of Marc Dann. Cognitively, Ray Miller reminds me of Terry Schiavo.
February 14th, 2009 at 1:20 am