Erik Paulsen announced his first staff hires today. One of them is Lee Birkhold, who will be Paulsen’s Chief Fundraiser and who ran the Minnesota House Republican’s fundraising efforts last cycle. During her time with the House Republican Campaign Committee, the Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board cited the HRCC for making an illegal contribution to Austin Blees, failed candidate for the seat of Mary Ellen Otremba.
According to the CFB opinion, the HRCC “inadvertently” contributed $1,000 to Blees during the 2006 session, which is prohibited. In response, the CFB fined the HRCC $1,000.
Birkhold was named in the CFB opinion and was quoted as saying:
“…the HRCC inadvertently made a contribution to the Friends of Austin Bleess committee on May 3, 2006, which was during the session. This contribution could have easily been made after session and was an innocent oversight.”
I have no reason to believe that the contribution was not inadvertent, and the CFB’s judgement is certainly good enough for me, but I am really curious how you inadvertently contribute money to a campaign. Did Birkhold trip? I mean, this happened three full weeks before the end of session. Is Birkhold claiming that she was unaware of the prohibition? If so, thats pretty gross negligence. This seems like a pretty basic rule that the Committee should have been aware of.
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Well to start with I think most people know that Lee is not a he.
Second, most people know that she is very good at raising money.
Third, the campaign finance board issues more citations than the parking meter cop in downtown Saint Paul. You know the one I’m talking about.
You proofread and you proofread and stuff still slips through the cracks.
So you have no reason to believe anything other than the board’s finding, yet to still post the story in an attempt to smear people. Do you have any standard at all for what you publish or is it just throw dung against the wall and see what sticks? Makes me wonder if misidentifying her gender was really a typo, or just another smear.
Perhaps if you actually did real investigation, instead of pulling your wannabe journalist scam again, you would find that Birkhold actually notified the board herself of the violation after the fact. Maybe like, “Hey, we accidentally did this.” But no, just throw up another typically pathetic smear of someone who is by all accounts a good person.
Now I understand why my computer lets off such a foul stench whenever I dial up this site.
This one was pretty pathetic.
Wow guys, I thought this was a pretty fair post. I mean, Birkhold’s accident is the first thing that pops up on Google when you search her name. Don’t you think it’s a little bit ridiculous to try to claim that it’s not worth raising? It’s a crazy thing but sometimes in politics people are held responsible for their actions.
Once again, MN Publius proves it’s unworthy for reading.
1) You don’t know anything about the person you’re trying to smear (or their gender).
2) You attempt to smear a person for doing the right thing.
3) You can’t spell. The CFBoard has the name as Bleess, you spell it Blees.
Zack, come on. We expect more than this shoddy piece of work. I don’t think you can even try to claim you proofread.
Matt, that proves nothing. Maybe there just isn’t a lot of information about her, so that’s the first thing that comes up on the google. Your name doesn’t even show up on the first page of google search results, because there are a lot of Matt Martins. Incredibly, this is even more of a stretch than the original post.
As someone who worked closely with Lee on numerous occasions I can tell you SHE is top notch. This is huge for Paulsen and very bad for anyone who wants to run against him (on the GOP or DFL side).
Also, this post shows the persistent naiveté of mnpublius bloggers and lack of experience or basic knowledge when it comes to political operations.
a) On both sides of the aisle the finance director rarely, if ever, cuts the actual checks or makes the spending decisions. They focus on bringing the money in which Lee does as well, if not better, than anyone.
b) If you want to start playing the game of pointing out CFB citations, even the littlest ones like this, you aren’t going to win that battle.