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Joy Hofmeister, Fount Holland, former teachers' union chief charged with conspiracy to commit election felonies

Sometimes when a public figure's deviant behavior crosses over into criminal activity, the process of investigation turns up emails that point to a completely unrelated crime. Last week we heard about Anthony Weiner's selfie problem leading to a search of his computer, leading to more of Hillary Clinton's emails, including...

Posted by Michael Bates on November 4, 2016 1:37 PM

Regalado plays <em>La Raza</em> card

You saw it here first, back on February 25. BatesLine broke the story of maximum or near maximum donations by 16 executives and employees of ISTI Plant Services to Tulsa County sheriff candidate Vic Regalado, many of them of apparently modest means. On Tuesday, officers of the Tulsa County Democratic...

Posted by Michael Bates on March 9, 2016 11:34 AM

Tulsa County Sheriff special election ethics filings

Many thanks to the Tulsa County Election Board for providing scans of the campaign contribution filings for the candidates in the special election for Tulsa County Sheriff. (For a brief shining moment, campaign reports for candidates and committees in the state's largest counties were filed electronically with the Oklahoma Ethics...

Posted by Michael Bates on February 24, 2016 10:28 PM

Tulsa Election 2013: Ethics report notes; mayoral bet-hedgers

This is the first City of Tulsa mayoral election in which candidates are required by state law to file campaign finance reports through the Oklahoma Ethics Commission, rather than the city clerk's office, making it far easier to have access to the reports and analyze them. Tulsa County candidates also...

Posted by Michael Bates on June 4, 2013 8:57 AM

Pat Key campaigner arrested for sign stealing

This is pretty clever: A Tulsa County voter noticed that his signs supporting Dean Martin for Tulsa County Clerk kept disappearing from his yard. After losing several, he put a GPS tracker in one. It disappeared, too, but they found out who had the sign and a bunch of others...

Posted by Michael Bates on August 26, 2012 3:30 PM

Campaign finance transparency update

Thirteen of the candidates running for Tulsa City Council accepted my challenge to publicize any contributions they received after the pre-primary reporting deadline (listed alphabetically per district): Jason Trent, District 1, Democrat Jeannie Cue, District 2, Republican David W. Bell, District 3, Republican Roscoe Turner, District 3, Democrat Maria Barnes,...

Posted by Michael Bates on September 11, 2011 3:06 PM

A challenge to City Council candidates: Put last-minute contributions online

UPDATE: As of noon Friday, September 2, 2011, six candidates have accepted the challenge, and one, Steven Roemerman, has already posted his pre-primary C-1 disclosure, which isn't due until Tuesday. (See end of this entry for a list of candidates and links to their campaign finance information.) Campaign finance disclosure...

Posted by Michael Bates on September 1, 2011 8:27 AM