Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., may have beaten back challenger Sharron Angle and retained his post as the majority leader, but his campaign and one of his biggest supporters may have violated federal law to do so.
As National Review reported earlier this week, the Reid campaign sent a desperate e-mail to the senior vice president for government relations at Harrah's Casinos asking the company to pressure its employees to get out and vote for Reid. The campaign even offered to have Reid call Harrah's executives to help give "the backing" needed to get the company working on this.
The Reid staffer involved told Harrah's it needed to "put a headlock" on its supervisors "to get them to follow through."
This plea was distributed to senior executives throughout the company by a Harrah's vice president, Marybel Batjer. Batjer demanded that those executives "do whatever we need to do to get the supervisors to know that there is NOTHING more important than to get employees out to vote. Waking up to a defeat of Harry Reid Nov 3rd will be devastating for our industry's future."
Harrah's did just that, getting headcounts and insisting that supervisors explain why their employees had not yet voted. They also coordinated with employee unions to get buses and shuttles to take the employees to the polls.
None of this should be excused as just "politics as usual." Both the Reid campaign and Harrah's may have violated federal campaign finance law that prohibits in-kind corporate and union contributions to, and coordination with, political campaigns. Corporations and unions may spend money to run ads in support of or opposing a candidate, but they are not allowed to make direct or in-kind contributions to federal candidates.
Federal criminal law also prohibits intimidation and coercion of a person exercising his or her right to vote (or not to vote).
If a corporation or union spends money to support the election of a candidate in response to a request by that federal candidate (that is, if they make a coordinated expenditure), as clearly occurred in this case, then they are making an illegal contribution to the candidate.
More at the Washington Examiner
As National Review reported earlier this week, the Reid campaign sent a desperate e-mail to the senior vice president for government relations at Harrah's Casinos asking the company to pressure its employees to get out and vote for Reid. The campaign even offered to have Reid call Harrah's executives to help give "the backing" needed to get the company working on this.
The Reid staffer involved told Harrah's it needed to "put a headlock" on its supervisors "to get them to follow through."
This plea was distributed to senior executives throughout the company by a Harrah's vice president, Marybel Batjer. Batjer demanded that those executives "do whatever we need to do to get the supervisors to know that there is NOTHING more important than to get employees out to vote. Waking up to a defeat of Harry Reid Nov 3rd will be devastating for our industry's future."
Harrah's did just that, getting headcounts and insisting that supervisors explain why their employees had not yet voted. They also coordinated with employee unions to get buses and shuttles to take the employees to the polls.
None of this should be excused as just "politics as usual." Both the Reid campaign and Harrah's may have violated federal campaign finance law that prohibits in-kind corporate and union contributions to, and coordination with, political campaigns. Corporations and unions may spend money to run ads in support of or opposing a candidate, but they are not allowed to make direct or in-kind contributions to federal candidates.
Federal criminal law also prohibits intimidation and coercion of a person exercising his or her right to vote (or not to vote).
If a corporation or union spends money to support the election of a candidate in response to a request by that federal candidate (that is, if they make a coordinated expenditure), as clearly occurred in this case, then they are making an illegal contribution to the candidate.
More at the Washington Examiner
And what's going to happen? Nothing!
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