This Washington
McKenna Gets Max Contribution from Tea Party Star
US Rep. Jay Inslee's campaign reports they raised $450,000 in September bringing their total raised to $2.1 million.
Inslee got off to a messy start in fundraising earlier this year when he tried to transfer money from his federal campaign account to his gubernatorial campaign and ended up having to return $32,000 to donors who'd already reached state contribution limits.
The Republicans have also complained about a $200,000 contribution Inslee got in July from the Washington State Democratic Central Committee, grousing—much like Democrats do about undisclosed corporate contributions thanks to the Citizens United ruling—that the actual donors are secret.
Inslee's September fundraising reports aren't online yet at the state Public Disclosure Commission, so we can't tell you much about the latest batch of donors.
McKenna hasn't issued a statement about his September fundraising yet (they'll be issuing a statement later today with the final total), but $240,000 worth of reports from September are already online. (McKenna was at $1.52 million as of the August reports. Inslee was at $1.6 million.)
We'll take a closer look at both candidates' contributors (last month we noted that some Tea Party money was coming McKenna's way), but one name on McKenna's latest list of contributors did pop out: Nebraska Attorney General, and US Senate candidate Jon Bruning. (Bruning was the first candidate to be endorsed by the Tea Party Express in 2012. He's running against conservative Democrat Sen. Ben Nelson.)
Bruning is one of the AGs who has signed on to the lawsuit with McKenna to have the entire 2010 health care law thrown out by the US Supreme Court.
The real reason Bruning's name jumped out at us, though, was because there were several donors from Nebraska on McKenna's list. Weird. They are:
Thomas Dinsdale (auto dealer): $2,500
Ben Harris (President of NE Heavy Industries): $3,200
David Rogers (Executive of Frontier Bank): $3,200
Ryan Downs (Owner of Proxibid): $1,000
It turns out, these Nebraska donors are all big contributors to Bruning. Looks to me like Bruning is doing some fundraising for McKenna from his top donors.
We also noticed that D.C. lobbying firm Dickstein-Shapiro, which donated $1600 in June , has now maxed out to McKenna—donating another $1,600 last month. The firm lobbies for tobacco and coal companies, including the third largest cigarette company in the US, Lorillard Tobacco, and the world's biggest coal company, Peabody Energy. Peabody is trying to build a coal export terminal in Whatcom County.
In addition to the official corporate contributions from Dickstein-Shapiro, partners and top employees from the lobbying firm have also contributed to McKenna, bringing the total from the firm to nearly $20,000.
Inslee got off to a messy start in fundraising earlier this year when he tried to transfer money from his federal campaign account to his gubernatorial campaign and ended up having to return $32,000 to donors who'd already reached state contribution limits.
The Republicans have also complained about a $200,000 contribution Inslee got in July from the Washington State Democratic Central Committee, grousing—much like Democrats do about undisclosed corporate contributions thanks to the Citizens United ruling—that the actual donors are secret.
Inslee's September fundraising reports aren't online yet at the state Public Disclosure Commission, so we can't tell you much about the latest batch of donors.
McKenna hasn't issued a statement about his September fundraising yet (they'll be issuing a statement later today with the final total), but $240,000 worth of reports from September are already online. (McKenna was at $1.52 million as of the August reports. Inslee was at $1.6 million.)
We'll take a closer look at both candidates' contributors (last month we noted that some Tea Party money was coming McKenna's way), but one name on McKenna's latest list of contributors did pop out: Nebraska Attorney General, and US Senate candidate Jon Bruning. (Bruning was the first candidate to be endorsed by the Tea Party Express in 2012. He's running against conservative Democrat Sen. Ben Nelson.)
Bruning is one of the AGs who has signed on to the lawsuit with McKenna to have the entire 2010 health care law thrown out by the US Supreme Court.
The real reason Bruning's name jumped out at us, though, was because there were several donors from Nebraska on McKenna's list. Weird. They are:
Thomas Dinsdale (auto dealer): $2,500
Ben Harris (President of NE Heavy Industries): $3,200
David Rogers (Executive of Frontier Bank): $3,200
Ryan Downs (Owner of Proxibid): $1,000
It turns out, these Nebraska donors are all big contributors to Bruning. Looks to me like Bruning is doing some fundraising for McKenna from his top donors.
We also noticed that D.C. lobbying firm Dickstein-Shapiro, which donated $1600 in June , has now maxed out to McKenna—donating another $1,600 last month. The firm lobbies for tobacco and coal companies, including the third largest cigarette company in the US, Lorillard Tobacco, and the world's biggest coal company, Peabody Energy. Peabody is trying to build a coal export terminal in Whatcom County.
In addition to the official corporate contributions from Dickstein-Shapiro, partners and top employees from the lobbying firm have also contributed to McKenna, bringing the total from the firm to nearly $20,000.
