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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Huckleberries Online

Peanut Gallery (Bill McCrory)

I completely agree with your wanting to deliver a steamin’ Hot Potato with the sourest cream to the editor of the Coeur d’Alene Press for today’s editrivial criticizing Mike Gridley’s concern about his opponent’s apparent violation of Idaho’s campaign finance law. A promise to pay later is an expenditure, and the reporting clock started ticking when the expenditure was incurred, not when it was billed. The intent of the law is to provide timely and accurate identification of contributors and how much they are contributing. The use of a “cutout” to receive the actual bill due and payable is a mechanism that could be abused to conceal donors and their amounts. Thus, it was very appropriate for Mike Gridley to investigate and then complain. To have any real and meaningful effect, his complaint had to be timely. It’s disappointing that the Press’s editor believes that a candidate’s insistence that the law be applied equally and fairly is deserving of scorn.

Bill McCrory
Coeur d’Alene


DFO: You can find the Best of the Northwest link for Bill's comment here.



Huckleberries Online

D.F. Oliveria started Huckleberries Online on Feb. 16, 2004. Oliveria's Sunday print Huckleberries is a past winner of the national Herb Caen Memorial Column contest.