John Oxendine and his former Campaign Manager (and current PSC District 2 Candidate) Tim Echols are now in hot water – AGAIN.
This story by AJC’s Aaron Gould Sheinin describes an interesting tale. Apparently Ox doesn’t have quite the active fan base he thought he did, and he felt he needed to spent $12,500 to hire 150 teenagers to go knocking on doors.
That alone, not such a big deal, so long as it shows up on his disclosure.
What makes it an interesting tale is that the 150 teens in question were in Georgia because of Tim Echols, who is currently running for Public Service Commission District 2 and is Ox’s former Campaign Manager. But Echols also founded an organization called TeenPact roughly a decade and a half ago – and those 150 teens are all associated with that nonprofit organization.
Non-profit organizations, as a general rule, are barred from actively supporting or opposing any particular political candidate, yet these 150 TeenPact kids were going door to door actively campaigning for both Ox and Echols. Apparently this has raised some eyebrows at IRS already, though no official investigation has yet begun.
Furthermore, at least one former official with the State Ethics Commission said that while he doesn’t believe any ethics rules have been violated yet, both Ox and Echols should tread carefully.
Apparently Echols has offered similar services to other candidates, including Eric Johnson and at least one other Ga candidate. He has also used similar deals to campaign for Bobby Jindal and Ralph Reed, as well as at least some National Republican Congressional Committee candidates.
I urge you to read the AJC article to get the best picture here, but the above are the highlights.
For a man who point blank told me that his and Ox’s campaigns were separate, this doesn’t look so good.
[UPDATE] Echols has already filed his June 30 Disclosure (the deadline is tomorrow evening), and he did, in fact, list Gold Dome Consulting as an in-kind contributor for the maximum individual contribution – $6,100. There are also expenditures from Echols’ campaign to Gold Dome listed as $1,638.34, $764.55, $501.76, $1,001 (for a “Student Project Campaign Coordinator” from Louisiana), and $1,358.04. This totals out to 11,364.09, within $700 of the $12K he is reported as charging his former boss.
