Frank Antenori: Math & Management aren’t his strong suits
by David Pinar on Apr. 13, 2012, under Pol. & Govt.
State Senator Frank Antenori, running for the GOP nomination for the CD8 special election and new CD2 general election, has announced he has fired his campaign treasurer Jeffrey Hill, himself former state senator. Antenori spokesman Brett Mecum. says Hill “completely burned them”. Antenori’s campaign missed the April 5 deadline to file a report detailing the campaign’s finances with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), as required by law. All three other GOP candidates met the filing deadline. When Antenori finally filed the report four days late, for good measure he filed twice – one set of records apparently used the wrong form. Then, just to be on the safe side, he filed a third, amended version a day later. Just one little problem: All three versions have different totals for contributions, expenses and cash on hand!
An article on TheHill.com raises several other discrepancies and possible campaign violations:
A further review of the documents by The Hill showed that Antenori reported no expenditures for rent for his campaign headquarters. County property records show that the shopping center housing his Tucson, Ariz., headquarters is managed by Paul Ash Management Company, but there are no payments to the company. There are also no in-kind contributions for rent, which the campaign would have to report if it were being given free use of office space.
Antenori’s pre-primary filing also appeared to show his campaign in violation of federal campaign law that says that a candidate who is “testing the waters” with an exploratory committee cannot raise or spend more than $5,000. Once they do, they legally become a candidate and are subject to different reporting requirements.
Antenori’s filings show he started off the year with about $9,000 in his campaign account. He didn’t convert his exploratory committee to a full committee until early February.
This is the second major staff shake-up in three months for Antenori. In February, Treasurer and Campaign manager Kenneth Moyes, stepped down. The only problem is nobody bothered to inform the FEC. Moyes continued to receive inquiries from the FEC requesting details of the campaign’s finances and had to take it upon himself to send the FEC a letter informing them he had nothing to do with the Antenori campaign since February 9.
Frank Antenori is the only Republican with any experience in holding an elective office in the race to replace Gabby Giffords. If he can’t manage a campaign any better than this, manage to use simple math to file accurate reports after three tries, you have to wonder what any of the other three running on the GOP side would do.
Ron Barber – the right choice for southern Arizonans to send to the U.S. Congress.
