Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Ed Martin Financing Democrat's Congressional Campaign. Only Problem? It's With Missouri Taxpayer Money

Don't let anyone ever tell you that Ed Martin is stingy. Martin is generously providing $100,000 for the congressional campaign of Democratic candidate Scott Eckersley in Missouri's 7th District. The only catch: the money is coming from the money Missouri taxpayers had to pay when Ed Martin wrongfully terminated Scott Eckersley for asking then-Chief of Staff Martin and then-Governor Matt Blunt to comply with state Sunshine Laws. Eckersley sued the state after being wrongfully terminated and the lawsuits ended up costing the state of Missouri well over $2 million dollars.

According to Jo Mannies at the Beacon, Eckersley is using part of his settlement for the campaign:
As campaign "seed'' money, Eckersley is using $100,000 of the settlement he obtained from Missouri to end a two-year, two-pronged legal battle over his dismissal and a controversy over how the Blunt administration was routinely destroying office e-mails, some of which could be considered public records that must be retained, archived and made available to the public under open-records laws.

Eckersley was fired in the midst of the e-mail controversy. He contended he was dismissed by Blunt's chief of staff Ed Martin (who coincidentally is running for Congress as a Republican in the St. Louis area's 3rd District) after telling Martin and other members of Blunt's staff that they were mishandling e-mails. Blunt and Martin alleged other reasons.
So there you have it. Ed Martin is apparently extremely generous. At least, that is, when he's throwing away other people's money.

2 comments:

  1. For some reason, I'm not really buying into Eckersley's reasons for running as a Dem. He was disillusioned with the GOP, so, as a self-identified "independent", he decided to run as a Dem. A "fiscally conservative" Democrat.

    Sounds to me like his political views in SW Mo. are pandering to the GOP voters.

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's interesting Russ. I don't really know all that much about Eckersley's campaign. However, I'm not surprised he's running as a Democrat after what Ed Martin and Blunt did to him. Maybe he's just trying not to split the vote?

    ReplyDelete