Scott D'Amboise and the FEC

Last week the Scott D’Amboise for Senate camp called for the resignation of Senator Snowe and an explanation from her about what she knew about the alleged actions of her husband, former Maine Governor John McKernan, while he was the chairman of the Education Management Corporation (EDMC).

D’Amboise took a political shot, missed badly and this one will likely come back to bite him. If D’Amboise is the “Constitutional” candidate that he claims to be, then he should start by applying the 6th Amendment to this case. There is no public evidence that McKernan did anything wrong and furthermore, there is no evidence that Senator Snowe had any knowledge of the alleged dealings.

Apparently someone made D’Amboise judge and jury when nobody was looking. If either of the two ended up being true, then it might be appropriate to call for the Senator’s resignation. Until then, this is D’Amboise saying “guilty until proven innocent”. When your own record is a glass house, you should minimize how many rocks you throw.

A simple look into D’Amboise’s FEC reports from 2006 will show you what kind of candidate Scott D’Amboise will shape up to be. He has several “failure to file” notices from his 2006 Congressional campaign and you can try to find his “post-general election” report from the same year, but after several attempts I was unable to locate it on the FEC website.

A close look at the reports he did file will show that D’Amboise took $2000 from Senator Snowe in 2006. He also took $2100 from John McKernan, when McKernan was the chairman of EDMC. If he was so opposed to Senator Snowe, then why did he take money from her and her husband?

This money just goes to show you how much Senator Snowe is committed to electing Republicans in Maine. She consistently supports Republicans all across the state, regardless of differences in ideology. In fact, her support of Paul LePage was likely what got him elected last November.

I wanted to focus on the facts and I was concerned about the “failure to file” status that I found from D’Amboise’s 2006 race, so I decided to call the FEC and do a little inquiring. This is where it gets interesting.

D’Amboise filed paperwork with the FEC in March of this year, which according to the FEC makes him a candidate, yet the FEC has not received a first quarter report from him which was due on April 15th. The FEC sent the D’Amboise for Senate campaign a “request for additional information” letter earlier this month with a due date in June.

I asked the clerk from the FEC who I spoke with, “was he required to file a first quarter report for 2011?” The clerk’s response, “based on the paperwork they filed in March, I would have expected them to file a report for the first quarter.”

Basically, if they spent money or got donations after the filing of the paperwork with the FEC, then they should have reported them in a first quarter report. Even if he didn’t need to file, he should at least explain the TEN “failure to file” notices from 2006.

If D’Amboise can’t file his FEC reports on time, what can we expect from him in Washington?