Over the years, Bluestem has been examining the involvement of the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC) in Minnesota politics. The RSLC is "a political organization designed to assist Republicans in capturing and holding control of state legislatures across the United States," according to Wikipedia.
In June 2016, we posted Control of #mnleg is on Republican State Leadership Committee's list: what's in Q1 report. That worked out: RSLC dollars helped the MN Jobs Coalition pay for independent expenditures that helped Minnesota House Republicans retain the lower chamber, while the Republicans gained control of the state senate. According to the second amended 2016 year-end report for the MN Jobs Coalition Legislative Fund online at the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, the RSLC gave the political fund $725,000 during the election year.
According the Pioneer Press's Rachel Stassen Berger, Fight for Minnesota Legislature surpassed $31 million in last election for all races, parties and independent funds.
It's much tamer for the first half of 2017: The MJC has received $20,000 in two contributions of $10,000 each (see p. 92 and p. 114 of the document embedded below).
Which Minnesota corporations are giving to the RSLC? Here's what we spotted, for a parsimonious total of $131,525:
State representative Tim Miller's pals at CoreCivic--formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America and owners of the shuttered prison in Appleton, MN, gave $26,045 to the RSLC during the first half of the year. As we reported in November 2016, Miller received a number of out-of-state campaign contributions from CCA/CoreCivic:
He did manage to snag some campaign cash from Corrections Corporation of America's executives and their spouses, as well as from a couple of CCA corporate lobbyists. From his pre-general election report to the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board (available here):
There's $250.00 each from CCA Chief Financial Officer, Executive Vice President David Garfunkle and his wife Carrie, both of Franklin, Tennessee, followed by the same amounts from CCA Executive Vice President and Chief Development Officer Anthony Grande and his wife, as well as from CCA President, Chief Executive Officer, and Director Damon Hininger and his wife (page 4 of Miller's 2016 pre-general report).
Former Appleton warden Daren Swenson, now CCA's Tennessee-based Vice President, Facility Operations, Business Unit 2 also gave Miller $250 (page 6 of Miller's 2016 pre-general report).
Finally, there's the $500 each of CCA's corporate lobbyists (Kelly Durham and Brad Regens, page 7 of Miller's 2016 pre-general report) handed over.
Miller is running for congress in Minnesota's Seventh District, so it's good that he's made friends around the country.
Here's the document from which these contributions were identified:
Republican State Leadership Committee 2017 mid-year non-election year 8872 filing uploaded by Sally Jo Sorensen on Scribd
Image: the money barn.
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