Ken Simpler – A Cheater Cheats
Check out the finance report for Foundation for Delaware’s Future:
Ellen Barrosse = $10,000
Joseph Schell = $25,000
Kenneth Simpler Sr. = $10,000
Matthew Steinmetz = $5,000
Simpler Sr. and Schell are maxed out donors to Ken Simpler Jr., as is the FOUNDATION FOR DELAWARE’S FUTURE LLC. Furthermore, it appears that Schell has maxed out to Simpler through a number of relatives and (likely) through other PACs.
Lucky for Ken, we don’t enforce campaign finance laws here in Delaware.
(Stienmetz appears to be a corporate friendly attorney trying to keep a corporate friendly public official’s career going so they can push for ways to make the Chancery Court even friendlier for corporations)
Just look at this guy. You know he is guilty.
Schell is a Sussex home builder.
And Ellen Barrosse is a rabid anti-choice Rethug. Founder of ‘A Rose And A Prayer’. She wouldn’t pony up her own lucre if she felt that Simpler was a pro-choice proponent. All you women who might otherwise think of supporting him, it’s just another reason to vote for Colleen Davis.
Check out the Mellon connection between the PAC and Simpler! I will try to provide more info but don’t have much time.
Recommend digging into Henry C. S. Mellon who has contributed over $37,000 to Simpler via his candidate committee and Foundation for Delaware’s Future.
For a sample of Mr. Mellon’s interests, check out his twitter @HenryMellon2
For context, you’ll need to also see this: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-16/this-short-seller-pressed-tweet-then-the-fbi-showed-up
@Beach: I don’t mean to dissuade you, but you do realize, I hope, that guys like Mellon are where Republicans get their money. For example, in 2015 Mellon — who lives in Greenville — gave $20,000 to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s PAC. Rank-and-file Republican donors are few and far between, because they send all their spare change to the Rev. Billy Joe Jim Bob Gospel Hour.
There’s more going on but lots of layers.
What do this guy’s business dealings have to do with politics?
Feel free to help figure the story out. Is Henry the brother of Matthew Mellon?
How much of his wealth derives from his inheritance from Mellon bank?
Did Mellon bank have business with the treasurer’s office and/or Simpler? [yes]
Was Simpler involved in Mellon’s activity? [yes, but was it material? Idk]
What other business interests overlap with Simpler and Mellon?
I don’t think this Mellon has anything to do with the bank, any more than this generation of du Ponts has anything to do with DuPont outside of owning stock.
Mellon is listed as a financial adviser with income of $125,000 a year (IIRC; I didn’t make notes). He sold his house in Florida for $2.5 million before moving to Greenville less than a decade ago, so I’m guessing he’s got family money as well.
Are you suggesting there’s something fishy about the state treasurer having dealings with a bank? Seems pretty normal to me.
Remember that Simpler is considered the great GOP hope, meaning that he’s apparently willing to take a drubbing in the gubernatorial election. If Mellon was game for giving $20,000 to Scott Walker (Wisconsin’s governor, not the Delaware loon of the same name), I don’t find anything very suspicious about coughing up money for the presumptive GOP gubernatorial candidate of the state he lives in. It’s an investment, and I’m sure he’s looking at the payoff should Simpler manage to pull off an upset against Carney.
I don’t think there’s a story there, unless you consider campaign contribution violations newsworthy, which I don’t because nobody, in the general sense, gives a shit. As Jason said, these laws are window dressing, and after Citizens United it’s pretty pointless to worry about it.
It’s a much better story if he accepted $25 from neo-Nazis than $20,000 from some rich trust-fund Republican.
Also, Mellon contributed $1,200 more to Simpler’s candidate committee than allowed in the current election cycle.
Stop the presses.
I’m not trying to make news; just point out things that I care about with government and elections that matter to me and maybe matters to y’all.
I do think this Mellon is from those Mellons but I could be wrong. In articles about Matthew Mellon, there’s references to his brother Henry. http://www.newyorksocialdiary.com/across-the-nationacross-the-world/2010/palm-beach-real-estate-roulette-3
Another main point of Citizens United is that transparency of the campaign finance system allows the public to make informed decisions so maybe it’s not newsworthy and maybe it doesn’t matter in Delaware (b/c of our impotent DoE) but it’s important to me to know who funds our elected officials.
From my experience as a campaigner, the way a candidate operates a campaign is a measure of how the candidate will be as a public official. If there’s an inability to track the legal limits of a person’s contributions to the candidate’s committee, that’s a red flag. If there’s evidence that there’s a improper collusion between the candidate’s committee and a puppet PAC, that’s another red flag. The way business entities are used by the candidate and supporters is another red flag. The coincidence that Simpler pushed for Mellon Bank in state business is a red flag.
As a Air Force Intel vet, former campaigner and lawyer, I’ll happily disclose that I am naturally inclined to be suspicious of Republican executives 🙂
I like Thorton Melon the best.
I prefer casaba melon myself.