COLUMBUS - Career banking lobbyist Steve Stivers will hold a fundraiser this evening hosted by the Ohio Bankers League. The event appears to violate federal laws forbidding corporations from acting as "agents" or conduits for political candidates and their fundraising.
The invitation asks donors to "please join the OBL for an evening with State Senator Steve Stivers, Republican Candidate for Congress." The invitation notes that the event will be "conducted in conjunction with the OBL CEO Symposium" and directs donations to Ohio Bankers League headquarters.
The OBL is registered with the Secretary of State as a non-profit corporation and therefore cannot act as a conduit for campaign contributions.
"Career banking lobbyist Steve Stivers is brazenly testing the limits of campaign finance law in order to raise as much money as possible from his lobbyist friends," said Ohio Democratic Party Communications Director Alex Goepfert. "Trailing in the polls, career lobbyist Steve Stivers is ignoring caution, bending the rules and turning to, as George Bush would put it, his 'base.'"
Recently, Steve Stivers exceeded the limits of believability by repeatedly insisting that he was "never a lobbyist per se." ("A lobbyist by any other name...," Columbus Dispatch, 3/10/2008)
Confronted with his signed lobbyist registration form and a long litany of unchallenged news reports recounting his lobbying activities, Stivers recanted and admitted that he was indeed a career banking lobbyist.
Stivers' lobbyist background may also help to explain his apparent confusion about the core issues facing middle-class Ohioans. In March, Stivers dismissed middle-class concerns about jobs and the economy as strange. "It's weird," Stivers told the Washington Post. "The economy is just overshadowing everything." (Washington Post, 3/3/2008)
Click here to view Stivers Banking Fundraiser Invitation
I wonder how soon the FEC (Federal Elections Commission) will start their investigation? Shouldn't Stivers and his campaign staff know federal election laws? Stivers and his staff must be running a real slipshod campaign if they went along with a fundraiser sponsored by the Ohio Bankers League. Did the Stivers campaign think no one would notice? Are they so desperate for campaign funds that they'll attempt to skirt federal election laws?