Carol Shea-Porter Used Tax Dollars To Buy Voter File From NH Dems

Using Congressional Office Funds, Shea-Porter Purchased A List From The New Hampshire Democratic Party That The Party Profits From Selling

On May 1^st, 2007, Carol Shea-Porter’s Congressional Office Paid $5,000 To The New Hampshire Democratic State Committee. (Second Quarter Statement of Disbursements of the House, 110^th Congress, 1^st Session)

According To The New Hampshire Democratic Party’s FEC Filing, Shea-Porter’s Payment Was For “Access To The Voter File Maintained By The New Hampshire Democratic State Committee.”

“The payment on Schedule A supporting Line 17 from Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter was made for access to the voter file maintained by the New Hampshire Democratic State Committee. The fee charged for access to the voter file did not exceed the usual and normal charge or the ordinary market price at the time of the contribution. The fee that Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter was charged for the voter file was pro-rated based on the costs incurred by the State Committee in creating and maintaining the file and was also based on the amount of information that Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter was allowed to access on the file.”

(June Monthly Report of Receipts and Disbursements for the New Hampshire Democratic Party, Federal Election Commission, www.fec.gov, Accessed December 10, 2007)

According To Their Spokeswoman, The New Hampshire Democratic State Committee “Makes A Profit” Off Of The Sale Of Their Voter File.
“[Pia] Carusone said the party has had a database for years which it enhances and checks for updates against other data-bases, such as a national database for changes of address. The new information will simply update and add to that list, she said. She said the party makes a profit, but could not say how much since work updating the list is ongoing.”
(Norma Love, “N.H. Dems Can Use New Voter Information For List Sold To Presidential Candidates,” Associated Press
, August 14, 2007)

“This whole scheme continues to give off the whiff of corruption. While orchestrating legislation allowing them to purchase the voter file for $450, New Hampshire Democrats negotiated to sell the file to at least five presidential campaigns for $65,000 each. They also sold it to at least three commercial list brokers in what may be a violation of state law. Now we find out they sold the list to Rep. Shea-Porter, who used tax dollars to pay for it. This is outrageous and wrong,” Cullen said.

Unanswered Questions:
1) What did Congresswoman Shea-Porter use the list for? Is it to look up the partisan affiliation of constituents who contact her office? Did she use this file to target her recent taxpayer-funded mass mailings? If so, doesn’t that make the mailings inappropriately political?

2) Did Congressman Paul Hodes also purchase access to the New Hampshire Democrat’s voter file?

3) If so, did Hodes use taxpayer or campaign funds to do so; and was this the file he used to target his recent taxpayer-funded mass mailing

To connect the dots here: Federal taxpayers pay for the Congressional expenses. Shea-Porter buys the list from the New Hampshire Republican State Party. According to FEC law, all purchases from a state party count as contribution and is placed in there federal operating account which pays for FEDERAL election activity. This story is clear corruption and is going to be slow to blow up b/c reporters are bogged down with the primary, I think you guys could do well with this.

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