following the money trail

I agree with Bryan's conclusions. ODP should put this all together and inform Ohio TV stations that if this does turn out to be illegal campaign activities they would sue - staff

in addition to serving as general counsel for the ohio chamber of commerce and president for common sense ohio, mr. willam todd has also been responsible, in whole or in part, for creating the following "independent" groups in ohio:

citizens for a strong ohio (the nasty anti-resnick ads)

informed citizens of ohio (did the same thing in 02)

citizens for tax reform. this is the most interesting of them all. this group anonymously funneled a quarter of a million dollars into ken blackwell's tel amendment fight. according to a toledo blade story, this represents 75% of the blackwell group's funding for their first 6 months in business. and, guess what -- all of these have been corporate-funded endeavors...

why does this matter?  there are three broad areas that could make the whole common sense ohio thing illegal. 

1.  coordination.  neither common sense ohio nor common sense 2006 can coordinate in any way with the blackwell campaign, the ohio gop, or their affiliates.  the issue is whether todd can fund a blackwell ballot issue, volunteer on a blackwell steering committee, and be considered uncoordinated under campaign finance regulations.

2.  corporate money.  common sense ohio would be in violation of their 501(c)(4) mcfl status if they accept any corporate money.  as a result, they would be barred from funding the electioneering communications.  given mr. todd's past history of funneling corporate money for political purposes, this is an area ripe for investigation. 

3.  primary purpose.  as modernesquire notes, politics cannot be the primary purpose of this group.  again, this would make every dime common sense ohio gave to common sense 2006 illegal.

given the questions surrounding the legality of common sense ohio and common sense 2006, it wouldnt hurt if the odp asked ohio tv stations to pull the ads.