How did I miss this??????
The Ohio Daily Blog had the scoop about Steve Austria, Republican candidate for congress:
Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. John Mitchel (R-Beavercreek), now running for the seat of retiring Rep. Dave Hobson (R-Springfield) and a veteran of past campaigns for Governor and Congress, charges that opponent State Sen. Steve Austria (R-Beavercreek) and his spouse Eileen are co-conspirators in a scheme to steer no-bid contracts to campaign contributors of Hobson, who supports Steve Austria in the race and has paid Eileen Austria large consulting fees. Mitchel compares the scheme to the steering of federal contracts by Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) that resulted in his resignation from Congress in November 2005 and guilty plea to federal conspiracy charges. Cunningham is serving an eight year prison sentence......
.....On the telephone yesterday, Mitchel further explained his accusation. Steve and Eileen Austria sit on the referenced advisory committee along with Sam Greenwood of the Greentree Group. They were instrumental in causing money transferred by Greene County to the Dayton Development Corporation to be used to award a large no-bid contract to Greentree Group, purportedly to assist in an effort to keep Wright Patterson Air Force Base open during the BRAC (Base Realignment and Closure) process. Mitchel contends, however, that the base was in no real danger of closing, so the transactions in reality amounted to no more than an enormous transfer of public wealth to private hands, and in any event the purpose of the contract was lobbying and that is not the business of Greentree, an IT firm. Greentree in turn awarded a $660,000 contract to PMA, which is in fact a lobbying firm. During the period for performance under these contracts, principals or employees of Greentree and PMA gave $50,000 in campaign contributions to Hobson. Eileen Austria was a district director for Hobson, and while so employed Hobson paid her $50,000 as a political consultant.....
Ouch! We'll see what happens.
Of course, these Republicans help each other all the time. Republican candidate for Ohio's 15th district, Steve Stivers, is married to Karen Stivers. Mrs. Stivers is employed as the spokesperson for Republican Speaker of the Ohio House, Jon Husted.
According to the Federal Elections Commission, Stivers has $403,122 of cash on hand for his upcoming campaign (as of 12/31/07). Only 45.7% of his contributions have come from individuals (54.29% from PACs). The FEC reports that Democratic candidate for Ohio's 15th, Mary Jo Kilroy, has $638,087 for the same time period. Of those campaign contributions for Kilroy, 66.8% has come from individuals (28.75% from PACs).
PACs don't vote, people do.