Campaign Funds

The $7,000 in campaign funds given to Gov. Martin O'Malley by a tax evader and former political appointee was sent today to Farmers and Hunters Helping the Hungry, said Rick Abbruzzese, a spokesman for the governor. The tainted political donation was given by Richard Stewart, a Prince George's County businessman who pleaded guilty last month to failing to pay nearly $4 million in social security and payroll taxes for his employees. Stewart also was one of O'Malley's appointees to the Governor's Redistricting Advisory Committee and on the board of the Stadium Authority.    Maryland's Republican Party noted between 2003 and 2008, the period in which Stewart was not paying taxes, the businessman donated nearly $75,000 to Democratic elected officials and called on the funds to be returned.

It's amazing that Sen. John Edwardshad the audacity to divert campaign funds for personal use. It's also unfathomable that he basically turned his back of his supportive wife, who was suffering from terminal cancer. Even more mind-boggling is that Senator Edwards took some of that campaign money to cover up his relationship with his mistress, who bore his illegitimate child. He somehow thought he could wriggle through this morass of missteps and become President of the United States.

The state attorney general's office has said that Sen. Ulysses Currie may not use campaign funds to pay for his legal defense in a federal investigation if the probe "relates to his conduct in office" - as it appears to do. Last month, the Prince George's County Democrat asked the State Board of Elections whether he could use campaign funds to pay his attorneys in connection with the federal investigation into his previously undisclosed consulting work...

Is The Sun's news department or its editorial staff aware that a former Democratic presidential candidate and vice presidential nominee, John Edwards, is being tried in criminal court in Greensboro, North Carolina for using campaign funds he raised to pay off the woman he was having an affair with and who bore his child? You must not, because The Sun has carried few (brief) stories and no editorials about it. Look it up. It's true. Did you just miss it? J. Shawn Alcarese, Towson

WASHINGTON - Rep. Chris Van Hollen's campaign has raised $300,000 since he began exploring a run for the Senate next year, according to the congressman. Van Hollen raised a total of $338,000 in the first quarter of this year and has a total of $713,000 in his campaign account. Another Democrat considering the race, Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin, raised $60,000 during the same period and has $215,000 total. Kweisi Mfume, the former congressman and head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, who has declared his candidacy, transferred $103,000 from his old campaign account into his new Senate fund.

WASHINGTON -- Republican Senate candidate Alan L. Keyes of Maryland is paying himself a salary of $8,500 a month from campaign funds, according to campaign officials and finance reports.Although it is an unusual practice, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) cannot decide whether or not it is legal.Keyes campaign officials said that their attorney had advised them that the practice is legal."He's not independently wealthy," said campaign spokesman Sean Paige, adding that Mr. Keyes, 41, needed the money to pay his mortgage and feed his family.

Former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. used $168,000 of leftover campaign funds to pay for defense attorneys for Paul Schurick, his longtime aide who was convicted on charges of electoral fraud rising out of Ehrlich's failed run against Gov. Martin O'Malley in 2010. The payments were outlined in a campaign finance report filed last week by the Bob Ehrlich for Maryland Committee, which remains in operation. Ehrlich has said he intends to stay out of Maryland electoral politics. The money paid to four law firms that took part in Schurick's defense made up the bulk of. the committee's spending last year.

The state prosecutor has been asked to investigate whether a powerful Maryland lawmaker improperly used his campaign account for personal purchases and other expenses unrelated to his candidacy. The Maryland Board of Elections requested an investigation of Sen. Ulysses Currie, a Prince George's County Democrat who chairs the Budget and Taxation Committee. The elections board is not satisfied with the campaign's explanation for $53,772 in expenditures, including $41,555.27 for legal fees first reported by The Baltimore Sun. Other expenditures that raised questions include: $118 for an eye examination, $133.94 to a company that sells toy guns and remote-control tanks, $31 for auto body repair, $29.99 for online games, $21.59 for a cell phone accessory and $12 for a golf course membership fee. The payments piqued the board's interest because, by law, campaign funds can be used only to promote the "success or defeat of a candidate," according to Jared DeMarinis, director of the elections board.

Public disclosure of a quietly arranged loan ended former Baltimore County Councilman Gary Huddles' political career in 1985, and questions about another quiet loan he used to pay stock market losses continue to dog the 52-year-old lawyer.Huddles must stand trial in November on two counts of a three-count indictment that allege he stole $50,379 from his own leftover campaign funds in 1987. He paid back the money in 1989 and 1990, and all of the $90,000 fund was later returned to contributors or distributed to charities.

If it's legal for former Baltimore County Councilman Gary Huddles to use $50,000 of his political campaign committee's money to salvage a personal stock market investment, then why is Anthony J. Cicoria, a former Prince George's councilman, serving five years in prison for taking $64,000 from his campaign?The legal reason is that Huddles only borrowed the money and repaid it before the state prosecutor got the case. Cicoria, on the other hand, didn't pay his committee back before trial, and the Court of Special Appeals recently upheld his conviction.

Former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. used $168,000 of leftover campaign funds to pay for defense attorneys for Paul Schurick, his longtime aide who was convicted on charges of electoral fraud rising out of Ehrlich's failed run against Gov. Martin O'Malley in 2010. The payments were outlined in a campaign finance report filed last week by the Bob Ehrlich for Maryland Committee, which remains in operation. Ehrlich has said he intends to stay out of Maryland electoral politics. The money paid to four law firms that took part in Schurick's defense made up the bulk of. the committee's spending last year.

The $7,000 in campaign funds given to Gov. Martin O'Malley by a tax evader and former political appointee was sent today to Farmers and Hunters Helping the Hungry, said Rick Abbruzzese, a spokesman for the governor. The tainted political donation was given by Richard Stewart, a Prince George's County businessman who pleaded guilty last month to failing to pay nearly $4 million in social security and payroll taxes for his employees. Stewart also was one of O'Malley's appointees to the Governor's Redistricting Advisory Committee and on the board of the Stadium Authority.    Maryland's Republican Party noted between 2003 and 2008, the period in which Stewart was not paying taxes, the businessman donated nearly $75,000 to Democratic elected officials and called on the funds to be returned.

Prince George's County Del. Tiffany Alston is facing new criminal charges after being accused Thursday of making the General Assembly pay the salary of an employee in her private law practice. Alston, a Democrat, was charged in September with misusing campaign funds to purchase, among other items, a wedding dress. The new charges were handed up Thursday by an Anne Arundel County grand jury after an investigation by Maryland's Office of the State Prosecutor. In the indictment, prosecutors allege that the delegate added the $100-a-day clerk position to her state office payroll in January.

Just what we need: another Baltimore mayor fixated on shoes. At least Otis Rolley, the former city planning director running for mayor, isn't waving a high heel in a threatening manner. Nor is he asking developers doing business with the city to buy him Jimmy Choos.  He'd like ordinary citizens to chip in for his footwear, in the form of campaign donations. "It's a very rare thing for me, but I need new shoes," the candidate writes in an email that includes a photo of some well-worn lace-ups.

The longtime treasurer to state Sen. Ulysses Currie sobbed in court Monday after an Anne Arundel County judge sentenced her to a year in jail for stealing more than $166,000 in campaign donations. Olivia Harris, 65, pleaded guilty to theft in February. Before she was sentenced, she asked the judge for leniency. "I'd like to apologize and say how sorry I am," she said. "I have, for all of my life, been an upstanding citizen. ... I'm remorseful for what I did. " State prosecutors opened a probe into Currie's campaign spending after a Baltimore Sun article raised questions about payments he made to a private law firm to defend him during a federal bribery investigation.

On a single day in January, a local developer used several corporations he controlled to contribute seven times the individual campaign donation limit to the eventual winner of the race for Baltimore County executive. As Election Day four years ago drew near, a prominent Washington attorney loaned half a million dollars to the candidate who would become governor. A decade ago, a candidate for mayor of Baltimore spent more than $4,000 in campaign funds on suits. Such moves might have raised eyebrows, but each was legal — revealing persistent loopholes in Maryland campaign finance law that have been exploited by candidates of both parties and all levels.

Del. Elijah E. Cummings far outdistanced the field in fund raising in the race for the 7th Congressional District seat, taking in more than $220,000 -- nearly twice that of the nearest candidate -- during the latest reporting period.Mr. Cummings spent $99,665, less than half of his total contributions for the period ending Feb. 14 covered in the report, leaving him with $121,915 in cash on hand, plenty of money for a last-minute media blitz before Tuesday's the March 5 primary.And The campaign has taken in another $40,000 since the report was filed, said Julius Henson, Mr. Cumming's campaign manager.

Former Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele's personal political accounts were billed at least $188,000 by Washington law firms during his first year as chairman of the Republican National Committee, according to state and federal disclosure reports. Steele used state campaign funds to pay the law firms, but the specific purpose for most of the expenditures wasn't disclosed, in apparent violation of Maryland reporting guidelines. Some of the costs appear to involve activity that predated his tenure as Republican national chairman.

Julian Earl Jones Jr. is prepping for what he calls the "big blitz. " Jones is mobilizing volunteers from his primary bid for a Baltimore County Council seat that he lost by just 98 votes to Councilman Kenneth N. Oliver, the Democratic incumbent. He's using those workers and others to build support in his write-in campaign for the same seat — the type of campaign that almost never succeeds in Maryland. Most write-in candidates don't have enough money or name recognition to win. But Jones, a division chief in the Anne Arundel County Fire Department who placed a close second in a six-way primary race, has a good shot, said Donald F. Norris, who heads the department of public policy at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

The ascendance of Christine O'Donnell, Delaware's tea party-backed candidate for the U.S. Senate, has women like me cringing like we haven't done since Sarah Palin arrived on the scene. Please, God. Not another ditz with baggage and a loopy belief system. Ms. O'Donnell — and the never-married 41-year-old might object to that courtesy title — was the surprise winner of the Republican nomination in our neighbor state, running with Ms. Palin's endorsement and on her platform of patriotic platitudes.