April 25, 2008

Misconduct in Louisiana Special Election? No One Home at FEC to Investigate

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The DCCC is arguing that the conservative group Freedom’s Watch has unlawfully coordinated with the NRCC on political advertisements in the LA-6 special election. This is how they make their case:

LA-6 should be a comfortable win for the GOP. Bush won there by 19 points in 2004 and the district hasn’t sent a Democrat to Congress in 32 years. But the Democrat in the race, Don Cazayoux, is up in the polls and nonpartisan election watcher Charlie Cook has rated the race as “lean Democratic.”

So Republican-leaning outside groups are throwing tons of cash at the race. If they coordinated with the Republican Party in order to plan how that cash is spent, they broke the law. The regulatory body in charge of investigating such cases? The FEC, currently out of commission.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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