Related:
> “Netroots Nation used to “buy” Kansas State Rep District 15 in Olathe?” by Kansas Meadowlark
> KRA follow up: “Tevis: For special interest money before he was against it”
> “Tevis opens up his warchest” from PrimeBuzz
Sean Tevis, husband of Michelle Tevis, former editor for the Kansas City Star, and a candidate for Kansas House District 15, issued a press release October 12th criticizing his opponent, Republican Arlen Siegfreid, of holding an out of district fundraiser at a country club.
Tevis has raised over $96,000 in July and over $13,000 since August 1st with nearly all of it from out-of-state internet contributions. Over $69,000 was listed as un-itemized contributions on his July 2008 campaign finance report, with another $8,000 plus listed as un-itemized in his October 2008 report. Over 70% of all donations received by Tevis thus far have been listed as ‘unitemized’ with no information about the donors at all.
Both his July 2008 and most recent October 2008 reports show Tevis has yet to raise even $1 from the House District he wants to represent.
We’ve created a google map listing all of Tevis’ Kansas Contributors to date, and as you can see, not one is from House District 15 (represented in blue on the map below.)
Tevis has raised only $2,475.88 from Kansas donors, all of which live outside of House District 15. That means over 97.5% of all donations came from outside of Kansas.
Also in the press release, Tevis’ staff says:
Tevis takes Seigfreid to task for holding a fundraiser down the road from House District 15 while he continues to raise cash from not only out of district and out of state, but in many cases, out of the country.
July and October filings show Tevis accepted:
> $120 from Christian Hansen of London, England on 7/18/08
> $100 from Miller Matthew of Kasumigoaka, Japan on 7/16/08
> $100 from Matt Curzon of Brighton, England on 7/29/08
The July ‘08 report shows a refund of the $120 contribution from Christian Hansen of England, but the other $100 donations show no refunds. Are these US Citizens living abroad? If so, how was US citizenship established? What about the tens of thousands of dollars that was raised that Tevis listed as unitemized. How were those contributions vetted for citizenship?
Take a look at the second international donor. Who names their kid Miller Matthew? If a name isn’t listed correctly, were these donors vetted for citizenship before their cash was put in the bank?
Tevis’ press release continues:
And yet Tevis’ July 2008 filing shows that his very first contribution was $500 from the KNEA on 7/2/08. The $500 was later returned to the KNEA on 9/23/08, over 2 months later. Tevis’ claim that his campaign had “taken no special interest money” is apparently a lie.
Tevis continued to criticize his opponent for accepting donations from Political Action Committee’s
And yet Tevis was singing a very different tune on June 17th when he took time out to write a blog post about filling out PAC Surveys.
In fact, Tevis elaborated even more about his feelings towards PAC’s with his June 30th post regarding his KNEA endorsement. This post was written 3 days before he accepted $500 in special interest money.
And remember all the time and energy Tevis would have had to spend filling out forms letting people know what his views were? Well, he’s got time for the right people apparently:
I went to the KNEA headquarters and sat at a big table with eight representatives from their group, all of whom are teachers. My 15 minute interview became an hour-long brainstorming and strategy session. Afterward, I emailed them my answers to their questions. A week later I got an answer: I’m endorsed!
You see? He does have time, it just depends on who’s asking for it!
And in case you were worried it was only the KNEA PAC Tevis wanted to publicize, think again. Tevis also highlights endorsements from the MainStream Coalition PAC, Kansas Families for Education PAC and Educating All Children in Kansas PAC.
Tevis also claims to be an advocate for open government.
And yet Tevis refuses to reveal who donated over $77,000 to his campaign to date. How can one be an advocate for open government when they refuse to reveal over 70% of their contributors? How can a candidate be for open government when he refuses to let the citizens know who is funding his campaign?
Now, Tevis obviously got a lot of small donations. How can a reasonable person expect him to list everyone?
First of all, all donations went through PayPal, so all of his records should already be in place.
Second, let’s take a look at the original appeal.
There’s two things to note about this.
First, there’s no evidence here that he appealed to internet contributors so he wouldn’t have to take special interest money, as he claims in his October 12th press release. Further, his acceptance of $500 from KNEA and belated refund show that Tevis has no problem taking PAC money.
Second, note the promise of a thank you note. If a guy can go to the trouble of writing a thank you note to a donor, shouldn’t he also have the courtesy to the voters to disclose his donors, especially after claiming he’s for ‘open government?’
Sean Tevis apparently not only lies about taking special interest money, but has trouble practicing what he preaches as well.
Sebelius’ Bluestem PAC took in over $400,000 in donation with only $30,000 of it from Kansas. Tevis raised over $100,000 with just over 2% from Kansas to fund his machine of deception and lies.
When will this flood of out-of-state money end? When the citizens stand up and say, “NO MORE!”, that’s when!
It will only end when the citizens reject the big money in favor of the truth. And that can only happen if we start to stand up for what’s right with not only our mouths, but our pocketbook as well.
We’ll even take $8.34!
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on Oct 30th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
Hello anonymous KRA person!
I’m more than happy to answer your questions. Feel free to ask me anything, anytime. It’s a lot of work to write a long post like you have done and I think I might have saved you some time.
1) My wife no longer works for The Kansas City Star, FYI.
2) No one in my district donated more than $50, the legal limit required to list them on the official report. But so far as I can tell, I raised far more local money from more local contributors than my opponent. Of course, my opponent may have raised small donations, too, so I can’t be sure. Are you suggesting campaign finance reform where candidates can only spend local donations? There are no local lobbyists, so it would certainly change things. I think we could have a good, robust conversation about the merits and drawbacks of that sometime.
3) Kudos on making the donation map. That must have taken a lot of work on your part. Thanks!
4) We verified citizenship of anyone living abroad, many of whom are I.T. contractors working for firms such as Google or Microsoft. I know many of them personally. We refunded over $2,000 to people for whom we couldn’t verify citizenship. This is more rigorous, by the way, than what any other State Representative campaign does. There are non-U.S. citizens living everywhere in Kansas. Should all donations be certified somehow? It’s intriguing, and if you have any ideas I’d love to hear them.
5) The KNEA check was deposited and later refunded, as you noted, so that I can stay lobbyist-free. I think it would be disingenuous to believe that you can work to improve schools without the KNEA being part of the discussion. And I think we need a great deal of work to continue our move to improve Kansas schools.
6) I revealed my full list of donors – even those people who donated less than a dollar – to the first person who asked to see it – a reporter from The Kansas City Star. It’s not a secret. It’s just huge. Your assertion that there was a refusal involved is puzzling.
Your conclusions, unfortunately, are wrong. Really, really wrong. And calling me a liar is completely out of the bounds of propriety. Truth is more important than politics. But I forgive you.
I believe in open government and I think I’ve proven that our reporting processes need to be modernized. I wholeheartedly support this. I’d like to involve you as a partner in this process. Let me know and ideas or suggestions you may have to help improve Kansas. We’re all in this together. Thanks!
on Nov 9th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
KRA,
I found the story on Sean Tevis very interesting and very flawed. Your map shows no contributors from his district. How can that be? I live in his district and gave $25 dollars. I went to a town hall meeting where Mr. Tevis spoke and saw several residents from Tevis’ district writing checks of $20 or more. Several of these town hall meetings were held and I went to them. Again several residents were giving a donation. Many in the district are Senior Citizens and perhaps all they could afford was under $50.
As far as Mr. Tevi taking a donation fron KNEA. I don’t think it matters whether he returned it the next day or month. The important thing is that it was returned.
In viewing his opponents campaign record I have a big problem seeing that Mr. Siegfreid took a large donation from Sunflower Electric Power. Then he took part in a vote in favor of building the coal fired power plants in Western Kansas owned by Sunflower Electric and other power companies. He also took contributions from K.C.P.&L, Atmos Energy,Westar Energy employees,Embarq Corp. This seems alittle on the underhanded side to take contributions from companies who have a stake in what your voting on.
If you bothered to check Mr. Siegfreids contributors list you would see several out of state donors such as: BNSF Railway, Ft. Worth Texas,Anheiser-Busch Co.,St. Louis Mo.,NRA Fairfax Virginia,Sprint-Nextel,Phoenix Arizona.Humana, Loisville KY. and many others.Very few individuals are listed. Most are big companies outside the district. Much has been said about Mr. Tevis’contributors what about Mr. Siegfreids conributors? I think it’s only fair to show both sides. Thanks!
on Nov 9th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
Hi Jeff,
I think you misunderstood some of what I wrote, so I’m happy to answer your questions!
As you hopefully read above, the reason my map doesn’t show any donations from within House District 15 is because Mr. Tevis didn’t itemize any of his in district donations on his campaign finance report. All of the donations you see on the map are itemized in-state donations as reflected on his campaign finance report. This is the ONLY way to know who has given to his campaign.
What I mean by itemized is that he disclosed who gave him money, where they were from, and how much they gave. Any donation under $50 Mr. Tevis chose to make un-itemized on his report. Therefore, all I know is how much total was given. I know nothing about who gave it, where they’re from or how much they gave.
If you’d like to have the map corrected, then ask Mr. Tevis to itemize his contributors that gave less than $50 and submit it to the state Ethics Commission so that it is available to the public. As you see above, Mr. Tevis said that he would disclose his small donors to any voter that asked, but I have yet to see that happen.
While I personally believe you gave $25 to Mr. Tevis, how in the world would I know about it if he doesn’t disclose it to the public? He’s been asked to disclose his full donor list, but so far he hasn’t complied. What am I to do? All I can do is report what is public information. And according to the public documents, he’s received no in-district contributions, only just over 2% of all donations were from within Kansas and under 30% of all money received was itemized on his campaign finance report.
Now, the KNEA donation. Mr. Tevis said in his press release that he had taken “no special interest money.” It’s a blanket statement. He didn’t say he’d returned all PAC money taken, he said he’d not taken any. He DID take PAC money. Those are the facts. If you want to believe that returning the money over two months later means he never took it to begin with, then that’s okay, your choice. I see a statement of never taking something and then his first contribution being $500 from special interests. So, I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one.
Now, on to energy company PAC money. If I’m understanding you correctly, the gist of your argument is that since Rep. Siegfreid took campaign contributions from energy companies he shouldn’t in any way vote for a bill that would benefit them.
So, let’s try that logic out on other situations. According to your logic, every legislator that took KNEA PAC money shouldn’t vote for increased teacher salaries because the KNEA is a teachers union, and teachers would benefit from that. Every legislator that took Pro-Kan-Do money shouldn’t vote for less restrictions on abortion. Every legislator that took Kansas City Chamber PAC money shouldn’t vote for tax cuts for Kansas City area businesses. And every legislator that took gambling money shouldn’t vote for more gambling in Kansas. I think you see my point. Candidates take special interest money from certain groups because they agree with their position. It would be silly to expect that legislator to then not vote or vote against the interests of that group. That’s why they gave the money in the first place. So, just like it’s Sunflower’s right to give political donations, it’s also your right to give donations to candidates that agree with your values. I think we can all agree that everyone should have the right to donate to whomever we want.
Look, I’ll hopefully make this argument clear for you. Mr. Tevis doesn’t consider the KNEA to be special interest money because he agrees with the group, it’s just that simple. That’s why he didn’t think twice about saying he’d taken “no special interest money” because in his mind he believed he hadn’t.
But that donation was PAC money because, contrary to what you or Mr. Tevis may believe, the KNEA is a teachers union which advocates for teachers. Now, they’d like you think that they advocate for “public education” but the fact of the matter is they are a union which, in theory, would advocate for their members, which are teachers. This is otherwise known as a special interest.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I think it’s only fair to answer your questions completely because you took the time to comment and show you care. I’m sure I didn’t change your mind, but if you thought this then I’m sure there are many others who think the same thing, and they deserve an explanation why that logic is wrong as well.
Thanks again.