By Jeremy Portnoy for RealClearInvestigations
Topline: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz accepted $890,000 in marketing campaign donations from staff – together with C-suite executives – of 434 state distributors between 2019 and 2022, a new report from OpenTheBooks discovered.
Those self same corporations collected almost $15 billion in funds from the state between 2019 and 2023, in keeping 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 grew to become 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 data 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 growth 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 vice chairman.
Kinsale Communications obtained $160,583 in state spending, despite the fact that there’s few on-line data of the enterprise even present in any respect. President Steve Kinsella and his members of the family 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 not possible to determine which, if any, of the transactions characterize precise conflicts of curiosity.
The Minnesota checkbook accommodates solely greenback values and a listing of corporations that obtained state cash. The state ignored OpenTheBooks’ freedom of data request for particulars of every transaction, despite the fact 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 available as of Dec. 31, 2023. He can not legally switch the money to the Harris-Walz marketing campaign, however he theoretically might refund the contributions and ask donors to ship the cash again to the presidential ticket.
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Abstract: It’s probably that many Minnesota distributors would have obtained state enterprise even with out donating to Walz’s marketing campaign — but when any are receiving preferential remedy, taxpayers need to know.
The #WasteOfTheDay is dropped at you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com
Syndicated with permission from RealClearWire.
