The Cincinnati Beacon - Clean Elections in Cincinnati: What Went Wrong?

In 2001, voters passed Issue 6, which aimed at cleaning up the election process in the City of Cincinnati. Among other things, it would have allowed for some public funding of campaigns for candidates who accepted certain contribution limits—and it called for the establishment of the Cincinnati Elections Commission to oversee the new processes. The next year, before we could ever see what City elections looked like with all of these new components, COAST overturned the portion of campaigns being partially funded by the public. But the rest of the issue stayed in the Charter.

The establishment of the Cincinnati Elections Commission, therefore, is what brings us interfaces like this one, which allegedly allow citizens to view campaign contributions.

In a statement from Laketa Cole about contributions from Keith Glaser, she offered the following explanation:

Per my treasurer the following is what happened:

1. Glaser gave Laketa $150 at a fundraiser on April 15, 2004 (not in 2005 as mentioned in the My Main Man e-mail)—this contribution is contained in the 2004 Annual Report filed on January 31, 2005;
2. Glaser gave Laketa $250 at a fundraiser on July 28, 2005—this contribution is contained in the 2005 Pre-General Report filed on October 27, 2005; and
3. Glaser gave Laketa $250 in a check dated September 28, 2005, which I received on October 26, 2005—this contribution is contained in the Post-General Report filed on December 16, 2005.

So, Glaser gave a combined total of $650. The apparent confusion is that I faxed-filed a 5 Day Report to the Cincinnati Elections Commission on October 28, 2005 which stated that Glaser’s aggregate/total contributions exceeded $500 with his $250 contribution I received on October 26, 2005. What is listed in the 5 Day Report is that Glaser’s aggregate amount was $650, but does not mean (or could it) that he gave a $650 contribution in addition to the three contributions he made during the 2005 campaign cycle.

You can see records for Glaser’s contributions for yourself: 4/15/2004, $150; 7/28/2004, $250; 10/26/2005, $650.

The CEC’s page, therefore, includes information that—according to Laketa Cole—depicts an untrue statement. So what is going on in regards to Keith Glaser’s campaign contributions? How should a concerned citizen navigate a confusing system like this?

We also questioned listed contributions from lobbyist Richard Weiland. Laketa Cole provided documentation to The Cincinnati Beacon which shows that she returned checks to Weiland.

Therefore, we owe Laketa Cole an apology for suggesting that she accepted too much money from Richard Weiland.

But the experience raises some other questions about the transparency provided by the CEC’s buggy web page. If it is important for citizens to be able to monitor things like campaign contributions, how complicated should it be to discover what’s going on with contributions?

when tracking Richard Weiland’s contributions to Laketa Cole. (Sorry, but we can’t link directly to search results.) Would a screen like this cause anyone to think that Cole did not accept a contribution from Weiland?

If you can manage to click further—without the system bugs giving you a headache—you may find the following pages: 5/28/2003, $250 which is noted as being returned; 6/16/2003, $1,000 which was apparently accepted; 7/2/2003, which is noted as being returned.

The timeline here does not really make much sense. While Cole has documentation showing the excesses were returned, why is Weiland making these contributions? As a lobbyist, doesn’t he know the limits?

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