As of 2pm on Friday, Jan 15, 2009, he STILL has not filed his Dec 31 disclosure, at least per the State Ethics Commission website.
What is interesting about this is that he is one of the candidates basically running on his ethics and integrity, yet he can’t find the time to fill out a simple form and get it in on time.
Is Ray McBerry still running for Governor? If he is, how can we expect him to “take care that the laws are faithfully executed” when he can’t even comply with a very simple one regarding his campaign?
Come on, we already know he’s not exactly a “conservator of the Peace”, but can’t we at least expect him to comply with transparency laws specifically designed to keep our government in check?
Isn’t that one of the central ideas of his campaign – that government is no longer responsive to the people? So why does he not respond to my questions regarding why he hasn’t filed yet?
What is Ray McBerry Hiding?
I spoke to him yesterday. The official word from the campaign, which sounds reasonable to me, when Jennifer Hodges left, her husband left the campaign as well. Mr. Hodges was the one responsible for the filing and record keeping. While the current campaign has all of the data, it is not yet input properly for filing.
Just relying the official word, from what I heard, from the campaign.
Jeremy,
I gotta call BS on that one. Ray announced that he fired Jenny 2 weeks before the official deadline, and three weeks before the grace period was over. He has now had a full month to get things ready, and he STILL doesn’t have it in, even as I write this reply at 5:40p.
I am certainly in no position to defend the campaign. But, for the sake of dialogue, I will play devil’s advocate. Assuming he is telling the truth that most of his contributions are both small, and from new donors, and assuming he has reached the $100,000 mark, coupled with the holiday season, I can certainly see how it would be possible there is nothing more to the story than what is being said.
So, if he had 18 working days to input the data, assuming he was short staffed during the holiday season, it would be a pretty good clip to input the data on a large number of donors in that short a period of time. I think we can agree he is working on a shoestring budget, at best, and most likely the data entry is being done by one or two people, maybe volunteers who might only can dedicate a couple of hours a day.
Again, I am not defending his tardiness, I am just laying out the scenario where his reasoning would make sense. But hey, maybe he has some Oxendine type donations he is trying to figure out how to launder?
I have to agree with Jeff — a big BS! ALL candidates know/knew that filings are a necessary part of this whole process. Ignorance is no excuse nor is trying to call the old “short staff.” I know for a fact that the report can be done for an entire six month period in a matter of approximately 21 to 28 hours. You do what you have to do in order to get the job done. Not filing timely raises all sorts of questions!
The online reporting system can be updated daily then submitted at the deadline. The data should have been up to date. Ultimately, the candidate is responsible for the the filing. There is no one to blame! jb
You don’t have to line item amounts less than $101.00. If it’s truly all small donations, all he had to do was have a total of the ones less than $101.00 and line item the ones above. It really does seem strange that a candidate running on the importance of upholding our laws is rather cavalier about upholding them personally.
As of noon today, McBerry still has not filed his campaign disclosure report. If you can’t follow the laws, how can you uphold them? He’s definitely a loose cannon.