While state representative Tim Miller announced his candidacy for Minnesota's Seventh District Congressional seat, now held by Collin Peterson, on April 7, as Don Davis reported in State Rep. Tim Miller launches campaign to unseat Collin Peterson, a search of records indicates that he has yet to file a Financial Disclosure Report with the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives as of the time of this post.
As we noted at the end of an earlier post about the CD7 Republican Party, Miller filed his Statement of Organization with the Federal Election Commission on April 12. Had this committee raised $5,000 by May 15 or after, it would be required to file a Financial Disclosure report.
Here's the basis for our conclusion: the CY2016 Instruction Guide for Financial Disclosure Statements and Periodic Transaction Reports lays out the filing deadline requirements:
Individuals are required to file an FD Statement once they “qualify” as a candidate by raising or spending more than $5,000 in a campaign for election to the House of Representatives. If you receive a notice to file a Statement before you have raised or spent more than $5,000 on the campaign, you should notify the Clerk of the House in writing or through the electronic filing system that the campaign has not yet crossed the $5,000 threshold. You may use the form included as Appendix E in these instructions to make the notification to the Clerk. See “Where to File” for the mailing address for the Clerk.
Funds loaned to a campaign from any source, including from the candidate, as well as funds expended for state filing fees, count toward the $5,000 threshold. However, only funds raised or spent in the election cycle in which you are a candidate ( i.e ., the two-year period consisting of the calendar year of the election and the prior calendar year) are considered to determine whether you have qualified as a candidate. For example, if you are running as a candidate for the House in an election to be held on November 6, 2018, only funds raised or spent in the current election cycle (2017 and 2018) count toward the $5,000 threshold. Any campaign funds carried over from the prior election cycle in which you were a candidate do not count toward the $5,000 threshold.
Candidates who never exceed the $5,000 threshold are not required to file an FD Statement.
Qualifying candidates are required to file no more than one candidate FD Statement for any calendar year in which they qualify as a candidate.
Filing Deadlines for Candidates: The deadline for filing the FD Statement depends on whether you qualify as a candidate in an election or non-election year. . . .
If you qualify during a non-election (odd- numbered) year, then you must file an FD Statement within 30 days of becoming a candidate or May 15 of that year, whichever is later. You are then required to file a second Statement on May 15 of the following year if you are still a candidate on that date. If you lose a primary election or formally withdraw, as explained below, before May 15, 2018, then you are not required to file the second Statement.
This apparently lackluster fundraising may actually not be a bad thing. Back in 2000, when Minnesota's Fourth District Congresswoman Betty McCollum and former state senator Steve Novak, then the powerful Jobs and Energy committee chair, vied for the DFL endorsement to replace a retiring (and dying) Bruce Vento, Novak was scolded by Common Cause for fundraising for the federal race while the legislature was in session. While not illegal (since the state campaign finance board can only regulate state campaigns), the clean politics group believed the practice to be unethical.
McCullum made an issue of the fundraising and garnered the DFL endorsement, as Minnesota Public Radio's Amy Radil reported in McCollum Gets Early Boost in Fourth District Race:
Her interest in campaign finance reform has had personal consequences. She declined to accept any PAC or lobbying money during the legislative session, and had raised just over $5,000 at the end of March, the least of any fourth-district candidate. McCollum says that has to change soon. "After the end of the session, my fundraising strategy will change. I made a commitment to not take PAC or lobbyist money during session, but the groups that endorsed me, I will after session look forward to sitting down and putting together an aggressive financial plan." . . .
For his part, fifth-term State Senator Steve Novak maintains he's the most-electable candidate against a Republican, with or without the DFL party behind him. He points to the fact that he's raised about $130,000 so far and to his endorsements from the Teamsters and building trades. . . .
We're not close enough to Miller, vice-chair of the Minnesota House Agriculture Finance Committee, to know if ethical constraints are causing him to refrain from legal fundraising. After all, Peterson's only committee assignment is on the House Agriculture Committee, where he is the ranking member for the Democrats, and so perhaps agriculture PACs and their allies are loathe to switch horses as the new Farm Bill negotiations get underway.
It's going to be a battle. Food Business News' Jay Sjerven reports in Legislators and farm groups push back against proposed ag budget:
President Donald J. Trump on May 23 proposed a fiscal year 2018 budget for the U.S. Department of Agriculture at $137 billion (budget authority), down $12 billion, or 8%, from an estimated $149 billion in F.Y. 2017, and outlined budget aims over the next 10 years that would sharply reduce expenditures and even eliminate a number of long-standing programs.
Leaders of the congressional agriculture committees pushed back against several of the more draconian proposals, which were roundly panned by farm and nutrition organizations. . . .
. . .Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, said the administration’s 2018 spending blueprint fails to recognize agriculture’s current financial challenges or its historical contribution to deficit reduction.
Read the entire post, including Peterson's cautionary note, at Food Business News. Closer to home, Maya Rao reports in the Star Tribune article, Trump's $4.1 trillion budget would slash aid to Minnesotans:
Trump’s spending blueprint also sets a clash with the next federal farm bill, due for renewal in 2018. It would cut $231 billion in all from farm programs over the next decade — in addition to the food stamp cuts, it would cut federal crop insurance by more than one-third.
The proposal “should be of concern to all rural Americans,” said Minnesota U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson, the ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee. That will make him a key figure in the looming debate; Peterson has been a vigorous defender of crop insurance as a vital safety net for farmers.
“Going down this path all but guarantees there will be no new farm bill,” Peterson said.
Since Miller participated in the April 15 rally in Willmar celebrating Trump's presidency, as City Pages' Mike Mullen reported in Celebrate President Trump' rally in Willmar features talk of voter fraud, 'civil war,' the lack of money might not just be a matter of delicate ethics on Miller's part. Perhaps the district's ag special interests aren't so keen on Miller's civil war.
Bluestem Prairie's earlier reporting on Miller's fundraising for his state house seat can be read here:
Swift Co Monitor endorses Falk, & all Tim Miller got was some lousy cash from CCA execs
Beet coop PAC pours sugar on Renville Co RPM; Renville Co RPM sweetens Tim Miller committee
Did Renville County RPM have money to cover a $4500 check to Miller's committee on 7/17/2016?
Miller's current state Economic Interest Statement (EIS) is found here at the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure site. The reporting requirements are not the same as for the federal office, so this document is not entirely predictive of what the federal filing will contain. The employer listed on the January 2017 document closed in July 2016, according to the West Central Tribune.
Photo: Probably our favorite Tim Miller photo, via Facebook in 2014.
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