By Steven Allen Adams, The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A West Virginia progressive group working to elect a slate of mostly Democratic statehouse candidates has contributed thousands in direct and in-kind donations to those candidates since the May primaries, but you wouldn’t know that from their campaign finance reports.
A review of campaign finance reports between the end of April through Oct. 23 filed by the WV Can’t Wait Action Committee, an arm of the progressive WV Can’t Wait group co-founded by community organizer and former Democratic primary candidate for governor Stephen Smith, showed no expenditures by the committee on their second quarter, third quarter, and general reports.
However, a review of the campaign finance disclosures for the same time period for 18 House of Delegates candidates and three state Senate candidates endorsed by WV Can’t Wait found that the committee spent $4,038 on $250 donations to 16 of those candidates. Another $11,612 was spent on in-kind donations to 14 of those candidates.
The reports are publicly available through the West Virginia Secretary of State’s online Campaign Finance Reporting System (CFRS). State Code requires every political action committee to “… keep detailed accounts of every sum of money or other thing of value received … including all loans of money or things of value and of all expenditures and disbursements made, or liabilities incurred, by the candidate or political committee.” …
