Questions about 2024 Amberwave PAC reports
Reports appear to be missing key information
This is the third and final article in a series about Mike Kelly’s Amberwave PAC.
The first article focused on the impact of Amberwave’s spending for or against candidates running as JoCo commissioner candidates in the 2024 general election.
The second article explored details of the PAC’s funding and expenditures.
This article asks questions about information missing in the PAC reports.
Questions about Amberwave reports
“Reap what you sow.”
An email sent on April 21 to Danielle Robinson, Amberwave PAC chair and treasurer, asked for clarifications and made a challenge to complete missing information in the Amberwave PAC reports. No response has been received.
Several entries in the Amberwave reports appear not to comply with the requirements given in the Campaign Finance Handbook for Party and Political Action Committees 2024 and should be corrected.
Here is the email (slightly edited) with nine questions that need to be answered:
July 29 report
This appears to have been paid in the 2024-10-28 report.
Q1: Is there a breakdown of “other transactions” for “bill for mail” vs “bill for consulting?”
Q2: Were any of the mailings for express advocacy? If so, which candidates were affected by the mailings?
Databascially’s address is available via a Secretary of State’s business entity search, so “not available” is not quite right.
Oct. 28 report
Pages 4 and 5 of this report appear to be “Other Transactions” but they are not labeled as “Schedule D.”
Q3: Why do neither of the tables on pages 4 or 5 sum to the reported “other transactions” amount of $119,379.80?
Q4: Why do the numbers from page 4 and 5 broken down by district candidate not reconcile with each other?
For example, why does the p. 4 table show “Shirley Allenbrand” spending of $31,978.74 when the sum from the p. 5 table of the “For Shirely Allenbrand” ($24,966.11) and the “Against Mike Storm” ($7,760) add up to $32,726.81 for District 6?
Q5: The 2024-10-28 report showed a donation of $500 to Riebli for District Attorney, but the p. 4 “Other transactions” table (see above) appears to show another $500 in independent PAC expenditures for Vanessa Riebli. Are these two separate payments that are both $500?
Oct. 31 last minute report
Q6: Is it correct to divide the $2244.51 by 3 for the amount spent on each candidate?
Jeff Meyers - $748.17
Julie Brewer - $748.17
Shirley Allenbrand - $748.17
Jan 10, 2025 report
Q7: Does the second line $119,604.54 figure correspond to the “other transactions” ($119,379.80) reported in 2024-10-28 report?
Q8: Is the date 10/30/24 accurate for this second line? If so, shouldn’t this have been made part of a last minute report filed on 10/31/24?
Q9: If these two expenditures involved express advocacy for or against candidates, why is the breakdown not given here?
Thanks for any feedback on this.
Related
Disclosure
Attorney General Kris Kobach appointed me to the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission in March 2024.
Analysis and views expressed in Watchdog Lab articles are my own and in no way reflect the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission. I speak for myself as a private citizen on this substack.