By Jeremy Portnoy for RealClearInvestigations
Topline: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz accepted $890,000 in marketing campaign donations from workers – together with C-suite executives – of 434 state distributors between 2019 and 2022, a new report from OpenTheBooks discovered.
Those self same firms collected almost $15 billion in funds from the state between 2019 and 2023, in line with the state checkbook.
Key info: The donations all went to Walz’s marketing campaign for reelection as governor of Minnesota and have been made earlier than he turned the Democratic vice presidential nominee.
CEOs, presidents and different executives of 86 state distributors have been among the many donors.
Staff of regulation agency Blackwell Burke donated $4,750 to Walz’s gubernatorial marketing campaign, marketing campaign information present, and individually obtained virtually $200,000 from the state. Co-founder Jerry Blackwell was one of many prosecutors who helped convict Derek Chauvin of homicide for the dying of George Floyd.
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Ted Mondale, the pinnacle of latest enterprise improvement and authorities relations at laptop consultants Atomic Knowledge, donated $2,250 to Walz. His firm individually obtained $169,310 from the state. Mondale is a former Democratic state senator and the son of Walter Mondale, a former U.S. Senator from Minnesota who additionally served as Jimmy Carter’s vp.
Kinsale Communications obtained $160,583 in state spending, regardless that there’s few on-line information of the enterprise even present in any respect. President Steve Kinsella and his relations donated $3,000 to Walz’s marketing campaign.
Different Walz marketing campaign donors that obtained state enterprise included Goal, Common Mills, Fortune 500 manufacturing firm 3M, and financial institution chains like Wells Fargo and U.S. Financial institution.
Background: It’s almost inconceivable to determine which, if any, of the transactions signify precise conflicts of curiosity.
The Minnesota checkbook incorporates solely greenback values and an inventory of firms that obtained state cash. The state ignored OpenTheBooks’ freedom of knowledge request for particulars of every transaction, regardless that close by states like Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota have been extra clear.
Walz completed his re-election marketing campaign with greater than $627,000 money readily available as of Dec. 31, 2023. He can not legally switch the money to the Harris-Walz marketing campaign, however he theoretically may refund the contributions and ask donors to ship the cash again to the presidential ticket.
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Abstract: It’s doubtless that many Minnesota distributors would have obtained state enterprise even with out donating to Walz’s marketing campaign — but when any are receiving preferential therapy, taxpayers need to know.
The #WasteOfTheDay is delivered to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.
