Political reporter William (Windy) March from the Tampa Tribune, stressed to my public affairs reporting class the importance campaign finance public records are to an investigation. One of the best Web sites March uses to find political finance information about a politician or agency is www.opensecrets.org. March also told us the impact money has on politics. Whether a candidate wins an office position is more dependent on the money his/her campaign fundraisers, rather than their ethics or beliefs. Still, it’s important that they are popular among voters, but money plays a key role in getting them into the office they desire.
However, some money given to candidates can be obtained illegally. March referred to the concept of soft money and hard money. Soft money is an amount of money sent to a specific party such as the Democratic Party. The amount given is not limited to a specific quantity. Hard money is giving a limited amount of money/contribution to a campaign or person. The amount given cannot exceed $1,000. March pressed the point that people are not allowed to give more than $1,000 to a candidate because it could cause an influence in future politics.
March then told us about a story he conducted in 1996 that focused around money laundering in politics. March suspected something afoul after reading an article from a Florida newspaper which specified the top 10 donation givers to the Democratic Party. One name stood out to Windy and his colleagues…Mark Jimenez. He wasn’t a frequent giver to political parties in the past, and no one had ever heard of this guy before. Sounds weird that Jimenez would be on the same list as CEO’s and other bigwigs.
Through the use of public records, March and his team concluded that Jimenez was guilty of political money laundering. Basically, Jimenez gave $1,000 (remember, that’s the most a candidate can receive) to his employees so they could donate to the political party Jimenez wanted. Not cool…and illegal. Jimenez was convicted for his crimes and his business was crippled.
Finally, March gave the class a few key Web sites that aided him in his quest to convict Jimenez. If you’re interested in political investigating, you may want to check out these sites now and again.
www.fec.gov: Official site for federal campaign finance records.
www.thomas.loc.gov: Federal legislation investigation
www.myflorida.com: Florida state government page.
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