December 15, 2005
MT Sen: What If?
Some MT and national Dems have a theory about why Sen. Conrad Burns (R) won't return the tens of thousands donated to him by Jack Abramoff and associates.
They speculate that Burns wants to preserve his campaign kitty because he's going to step down.
Rep. Denny Rehberg (R) would then announce he's running for Senate. And Dems worry that Rehberg would be a stronger candidate against either state senate pres. Jon Tester (D) or state auditor John Morrison (D).
Posted at 09:26 AM
Comments
What's the point of that? You can't keep fed campaign money unlike some states.
What's he going to do, transfer the money to a 501 or something and pay himself as director?
You think the RNC can accept a massive cash transfer from a "senator who resigned in disgrace?" If that happened, Rehnberg probably couldn't accept money from them lest they be accused of laundering "Abramoff" money.
I don't know, try another theory in my book.
Tom out of NJ | 12.15.05 11:27 AM
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I didn't go back and fact check this but $67K is, I believe, the amount Dorgan (D-ND) gave back and Burns' total from Abramoff is well above $100K.
Charley | 12.15.05 12:54 PM
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Um, why would you want to preserve your campaign cash if you are going to retire? What good is it to you then? This theory makes zero sense.
DavidNYC | 12.15.05 03:15 PM
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Tom's comment above is possible, but I'd guess not likely. Burns could in fact use his $6 million to form a PAC, name himself administrator, and pay himself a nice yearly salary out of it until it's gone. In that scenario, keeping the $136,000 from Abramoff wouldn't hurt him any and would essentially make it part of his retirement fund.
Xerxes | 12.15.05 04:25 PM
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When did the law change? I thought you could keep campaign warchests when you retired?
AS | 12.15.05 07:16 PM
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