This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2008, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
A national political action committee that has donated nearly a half million dollars to Utah's private school tuition-voucher effort has been hit with a $5.2 million fine in Ohio for illegally laundering money into political campaign funds.
All Children Matter, which gave $444,000 to Utah's pro-voucher group Parents for Choice in Education between 2004 and 2006, also is being investigated in Wisconsin for alleged abuses of that state's election laws.
The Columbus Dispatch reported Friday that the bipartisan Ohio Elections Commission unanimously sided with the secretary of state's office that All Children Matter illegally funneled $870,000 in campaign contributions through its Virginia political action committee to its PAC in Ohio in 2006. David Brennan, of Akron, Ohio's biggest charter-school operator, has donated $200,000 to the group.
The commission found the group violated Ohio campaign-finance laws, which limit PAC contributions to $10,000.
All Children Matter gave Utah's Parents for Choice in Education $254,000 in the 2004 election year and $190,000 in 2006. The Utah pro-voucher group in turn has spent several hundred thousand dollars trying to elect pro-voucher legislative candidates.
Attorneys for All Children Matter say they will appeal the decision.
It's the leprechauns: Becky Edwards, who is challenging first-term incumbent and loyal voucher supporter Paul Neuenschwander for the Republican nomination in Bountiful's House District 20, was first accused by GOP leaders of being a closet Democrat.
Then, the number of delegates in her voting precinct was reduced just before the caucuses.
Now, even though she was elected as a county delegate, her name is not on the delegate list distributed to candidates and party officials.
A lesser person might get paranoid.
Edwards said Davis County Republican Chairman Ben Horsley told her there were several mistakes that are being corrected.
They had better hurry. The county convention is Saturday.
Horsley, by the way, did not return my calls and e-mails seeking an explanation.
Or maybe it's Golam: Another Republican delegate to the Davis County Convention was called a week after the caucuses and informed she no longer was a delegate.
Becky Bouvang, of Kaysville was told that the state party had miscalculated how many delegates her precinct should be allotted, but didn't get that information out to the precinct officers in time. The elected delegate with the lowest number of votes would be eliminated, but she had been in a three-way tie. So, county party leaders flipped a coin.
Vice Chairman Wade Faraway says everything was done on the up and up and pursuant to party bylaws.
It's just an unfortunate coincidence that Bouvang works for the Davis County Education Association, a group that many Republican leaders considered an archenemy during the voucher debate.