Bill Todd and David Brennan do the pay-to-play tango

David Brennan, of course, is the infamous owner of White Hat Management, the largest charter school operator in Ohio. A couple of weeks ago, we found out that Brennan bought the Bill Todd for Mayor campaign. Now, the Dispatch has inadvertently reported that Brennan may have bought Todd himself.

This latest information comes out through a story about---surprise, surprise---a possible campaign finance violation by shadowy PACs that Brennan has given money to. Specifically, he has dumped $200,000 into a PAC registered in Virginia that turned around and transfered that money and a whole lot more back to another PAC in Ohio. Jennifer Brunner's office thinks that this is a violation of Ohio's campaign finance laws. Laws which are designed to keep wealthy donors like Brennan from pumping hundreds of thousands of dollars into a campaign. Obviously, the lawyer representing the PAC disagrees.

So, just who is the PAC's lawyer? Bill Todd, of course!

The Dispatch does state that Todd is the Republican mayoral wannabe in Columbus. The paper neglects to mention, however, that there are some serious pay-to-play issues here. Allow me to help connect the dots instead.

Brennan has so far donated $20,000 to Todd's campaign. As one of his campaign "themes", Todd has rolled out a ridiculous idea of seizing control of the Columbus City Schools and running them from the Mayor's office. Of course, one part of Todd's very thin plan is to allow for privately run charter schools within the district. You know...the kind of privately run charter schools that a guy like David Brennan operates. Todd's campaign has benefited financially, so a guy like David Brennan might sweeten the deal by throwing Todd some legal work. That way Todd benefits personally as well.

The PAC issue will be heard August 23rd by the Ohio Elections Commission. Campaign finance law confuses the hell out of me, but I'm going to assume that since Bill Todd is involved, whatever happened is at the very least highly ethically questionable.