Trouble in the 37th District
By Krystle Weeks | Thursday, November 19th, 2009 | PoliticsComing soon to the 37th State Senate district…Dave Marsden. It appears Marsden has established a web appearance showing that he is running for the Democratic nomination. Is this the best candidate that the Democrats could recruit? He nearly won re-election by 209 votes for his House of Delegates seat.
Aside from this, there are some ethical concerns stemming from Marsden’s run for the open State Senate seat that need to be examined closely. For starters, the domain to his State Senate site was purchased on November 17, 2009. He has not filed to run for the seat or even moved into the district yet. Wouldn’t Marsden need to file before spending any money on the race? Also, this would technically be breaking the law, wouldn’t it?
According to the Virginia State Board of Elections, a candidate for elected office in Virginia becomes subject to the provisions of the Campaign Finance Disclosure Act once any of the following occurs:
a. the candidate receives ANY money towards his candidacy;
b. the candidate spends ANY money towards his candidacy; and/or
c. the candidate files a Certificate of Candidate Qualification or a Declaration of Candidacy form;Once a candidate accomplishes any one of the items listed above, that individual must file a Statement of Organization for a Candidate form within 10 days of receiving and/or spending monies toward his candidacy OR filing a qualifying form.
H/T Riley at Virginia Virtucon
This could end up spelling big trouble with Marsden’s run for State Senate, along with carpetbagging charges. As a resident of the 37th District, I want someone who is actually involved and living in the district to represent me in the State Senate, as they experience similar issues when it comes to transportation struggles, etc.
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About the author
Growing up in Maryland typically does not yield a Republican. Fortunately, Krystle Weeks was one of the lucky few booted to the Commonwealth for her staunch conservative views. From an early age, she has been debating politics, and since 2006, she has been involved here in the Commonwealth helping Republican candidates to victory. Aside from politics, Krystle is a runner and a dynamite cook. You can email her here. Krystle also blogs at Crystal Clear Conservative and Charm Offensive Cooking.
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9 Responses to "Trouble in the 37th District"
For filing purposes, your campaign officially begins when you do any of the three actions you posted above: spend money, receive money or file papers to run. It doesn’t matter what order you do them in. As long as you submit the finance paperwork, you’re not breaking the law. Nice try.
Looks like he has a week to file and buy a house in the district, then, Dudeman. That’s not a lot of time. I hope he finds something he likes in this market.
His website is pretty bland. Run-of-the-mill WORD PRESS theme? Hell, there’s some pretty amazing stuff you can do with WordPres (Just ask Bearing Drift), and there’s some pretty, um not so amazing stuff you can do with WordPress (just ask Dave Marsden)
So he won by 209 votes. Isn’t that twice as many votes as the Cooch won by in 2007?
I am not a Dave Marsden fan, but if purchasing a domain name prior to announcing is a violation of campaign finance laws, he will have good company.
A quick whois check of campaign websites for the GOP candidates shows that:
SteveNance.Org was purchased in 1999
Horinkoforstatesenate.com was purchased on 11.3.2009
Willnance.com was purchased on 8.29.2009
With all the substantive issues-like carpetbagging-to confront Marsden, this seems like small potatoes…
Does he need to buy a house? I would imagine he can rent an apartment or just pay $100 a month to a supporter to “rent” a spare room and declare it his legal residence?
Bwana, Horinko filed with SBE within 10 days of purchasing her domain that specifically includes state senate in the URL. The other domains could and were used for other purposes prior to those candidates’ filing for this race.
The clock is ticking on Marsden to establish a residence within the district, register to vote and submit his candidacy papers to SBE. He has until a week from today. Oh, yeah. Thanksgiving and a weekend are in there, too. Good luck, Davy…
I would be interested in knowing what the regs are regarding websites without the office listed…following your logic, it would be OK for a candidate to spend money on building up a website, testing, and having it all perfect for announcement as long as the name doesn’t have the office listed.
I do wish, though, that you would cease these timeline/regulation schedules posts. Given how clumsy the Dems have been in doing this there was every chance they weren’t in tune with what they had to get done in ten days!
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