Jackson Jambalaya

I missed the part where the campaign or it's spokesman assured the public that no member of her family or other staff running the non-profit would benefit personally from whatever monies are left over. Any veteran of multiple bankruptcies knows exactly how to slide money around under various shells.

i didn't even know she had an 'administration'. but the nonprofit makes sense, in a break-even kind of way. along the lines of filing bankruptcies so no one in the equation, you know,, makes any money or anything. like the greedy merchants her administration relied on for goods and services and such...

Any serious candidate won't have money left over after the primary. If anything, they'll have campaign debt! They are full of it.

The Lee campaign must be very worried about Quinn.

Either the Quinn campaign just doesn't understand, or they are trying to deceive. I will give them the benefit of the doubt and for the moment accept the first premise.

There is NOTHING in the MS SOS Campaign Guidelines that uses the word "non-profit" in any way. The SOS Campaign Guidelines do discuss different kinds of organizations - candidate, campaign committees, etc. that can be formed to raise and spend money for candidates and spells out the requirements for raising/spending these funds, as well as reporting them. While the "Campaign Guidelines" do not disallow non-profit organizations in and of themselves they do not provide for them as this campaign release states.

As to the claim that this will stop any "excess" funds from being kept by the candidate - that is pure b-s. All one has to do is make sure that there are no excess funds - payment of salaries and 'expenses' could certainly take care of that.

The big issue in this is that it gives an unfair advantage to Quinn. Donors giving to a non profit can make contributions tax deductable. Donors to regular "friends of" accounts cannot.

Campaign contributions are not meant to be tax deductable.

Quinn was trying to be too cute on this one. It's not that they will have anything left over. It's that their donors will get a tax deduction for their contribution. Look to her donors and that will tell you who asked her to do that.

I'd be extremely careful about making a contribution to a political campaign and trying to claim it as a donation to a non-profit. In fact, I'd go so far as to question whether the donations to Jackson United are indeed tax deductible. She says the excess will be donated to a 501c3, but she doesn't say whether or not Jackson United has received 501c3 designation from the IRS. Approved by the SoS is one thing, but the IRS looks askance on contributions that are made to charities they haven't designated as such. I'm not sure a few bucks off your tax return is worth having three years audited by the IRS.

9:34, you're wrong. just because you're a state chartered "not for profit", you still have to qualify as a "charity" with the IRS and MS Bureau of Revenue.

Yes, there is someone worried about the Quinn campaign!! As the previosu statement highlighted, there is nothing stating that this can not be a non- profit. Maybe youpeople from Harvey and Lee's camp should focus on the issues at hand. We also want to know why Lee paid out over $20,000 to his manager???? Still waiting on that...

Uh huh. If I'm handicapping, neither she or Lee make the runoff right now. nice try.

The nonprofit disturbs me. Its not subject to the same reporting requirements. There are the matter of salaries, who is paid what, where does the money go, and so on. The 990's don't have to be filed until next year although given Ms. Quinn's failure to file campaign finance reports so far, that is not a sure thing. Even then, you don't have to report salaries under $50,000. The non profit did not appear on the IRS website when I checked even though it was formed last summer.

There is also nothing to stop a regular campaign operation from giving the surplus to another campaign or nonprofit as well.

If I'm handicapping, neither she or Lee make the runoff right now.

Agree with you. But I wonder if she is someone's stalking horse?

If anybody cares, Campaign Advisor John May is Quinn's husband.

KF - disagree with your assumptions. It doesn't matter if there is a non-profit, any money raised or spent on behalf of the campaign will still have to be reported within the Campaign Finance System. It doesn't matter if they are raised/spent by a nonprofit or by a campaign committee - they still have to be reported according to the campaign finance statutes (anything over $200 raised or spent) and by the CF Reporting deadlines.

Harvey Johnson is going to be elected again. Jackson can do nothing but continue on his downward path

You're right, 2:36. Still, it's entertaining to see stuff like this emerge from the Kulcha Klub.

Good point, Pete, and that is why I was thinking out loud. Nice answer.

I'm one of the ones who has been on the "Jackson is Dead" bandwagon a long time now, but I truly hoped I was wrong.

Let's examine the field.

Although I could see how Jackson could benefit from having a mayor who is also a bankruptcy expert (Quinn), her supporters seem to be behind her almost exclusively because she's a vagino-American and that's what she appears to be running on. I can't believe that her genital-centric campaign will be successful, but these are the same voters who elected Harvey 2.0 and Frank the Tank.

Looking across the rest of the candidates:

Chockwe Lummbubba has an entire ward of fools who were willing to put him on the city council. I'm sure there are plenty like them in most of the other wards in the city. If the rest of the challengers split the base of semi-rational voters, this nutcase could make the runoff.

The only redeeming thing about Harvey Johnson as mayor is that it keeps him on the city payroll where Jacksonians pay his freight instead of on any number of welfare programs where the rest of us have to chip in. Still, that's not much of a reason to reelect him. It's amazing to think that he could Jackson might choose another leaderless 4 years under Harvey.

Frank Bluntson, bless his ancient heart, is barely up to the task of his part-time alderman gig. If he had a real job that kept him from stretching part-time work into full-time hours, he'd never make it. Woe be unto the city if one of the local OTA TV stations starts rerunning Sanford and Son episodes on daytime TV. Bluntson should be scaling back at this point. At his age, his time would be better spent at home focusing on bladder control.

Who's left? Lee the (apparently) Unelectable.

Lee could win in some of the cities in the suburbs, and he appears to have the capacity to run a city. Stop for a minute and think about how unique that makes him among this stellar field. Yet only in Jackson would those qualities force him to the back of the pack. From the comments on here, it apparently has though. He's young. Strike one. He's signed the front of paychecks. Strike two. And he doesn't have a "specialized" blackness about him (e.g. He's not a black female, a black radical, a black dumbass, or a black octogenarian). Strike three!

Jackson really is doomed.

... he appears to have the capacity to run a city.

What criteria did you use to reach that conclusion?

He ran his family's business for a decade, was chairman of the chamber of commerce, and is on several major civic and business boards of directors. Looks like he has the capacity to be the executive of a mayor-council city.

The chair of the chamber is a powerless figurehead position.

Lee had a stellar career as Assistant to the President at MSU. Seriously - did a good job there under 'trying' (the President) circumstances.

While being chair of the chamber is somewhat powerless, the damnation to the city of Jackson is that recently on 'black radio' he was questioned about this with it being a negative! The fact that he was associated with the business community was a negative among those questioning him on the program.

http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/weblogs/politics-blog/2013/mar/21/update-secretary-of-state-validates-quinn-campaign/

Apparently a lot of people on this blog, are affiliated to the same camp that tried to make this a story. So for all of you that think you know again here is the official response from the Secretary of States Office her contact is below. Now run and go tell that!!!!

Can a campaign set up as a unincorporated nonprofit corporation?
A nonprofit corporation can be incorporated for any lawful activity. MCA § 79-11-149.

Can an incorporated non-profit organization serve as the fundraising arm of a municipal election campaign?
A corporation may perform any lawful activity. A contribution made by a corporation to a candidate, political party or committee is limited to $1,000 per calendar year. MCA § 97-13-15.


Lea Anne Brandon
Assistant Secretary of State
Education & Publications
Mississippi Secretary of State's Office

401 Mississippi Street
Jackson, MS 39201
(601) 359-6346 (office)
(601) 862-1657 (cell)
(601) 576-2541 (fax)