Ray Millers Hyatt Woes & BIG Rumor News
While you wouldn't know if you searched through Ray Miller's finance statements (since he decided to stop filing them about five years ago), I've been told (unverified) Ray Miller owes a ton of cash to nearly everyone in Cbus. I'm talking bling$ - serious dough.
Word on the street (and forgive me if the details here are sketchy) is that Miller owes the Columbus Hyatt about $30,000 stemming from past banquets. And well, that's quite the chunk of cash - which no surprise here - the Hyatt would like to collect on. Rumor is that prior to Miller's Senate Coup the Hyatt was threatening to embarrass the caucus and collect on the debt through Court. Now that Ray Miller is the face of the Ohio Senate Leadership, complications due to this debt become all that much more realistic.
However, luckily for Miller, he now controls the Senate Caucus general fund. So that $30,000 personal campaign debt shouldn't be a thing since the big guy can just cut a check from our $257k war chest (meant to aid candidates and other general caucus activities). See, problem solved. All that took was a leadership coup.
And on the staffing end (which Modernesquire has been hammering very well), the Senate coup could also work out rather well for Ray Miller's personal interests. In fact Miller owns Miller Public Relations. It'll be interesting to watch if any new Senate Caucus contracts are steered there in the coming weeks.
And on other rumor notes, I had a nasty rumor passed to me last night that Miller could be put in a difficult position later this week. So keep your eyes on the Senate, cause things could be heating up soon. Can't wait for those Republican Miller attack ads to start in every Senate race from the Ohio River to Lake Erie!
I actually meant the actuall staff members of the Senate caucus. I didn't even think about how the changes could bode for politicial consultants.
Jerid, I can't honestly believe that the Senate caucus would stand by and let Miller use the caucus's scarce campaign funding to bail him out of his own campaign finance jams.
I'm wondering what the rest of the Senate caucus thinks about the Dispatch's campaign finance story.
The Hyatt stuff wasn't widely known till the last few days (so who knows if Senate members knew that debt when they elected him). I really hope the rest of the Caucus wouldn't let him use those funds for personal use now (but who knows, is avoiding a negative lawsuit that could hurt the entire caucus worth $30,000...even if it goes to an individual caucus members' debt? maybe). But of course, you can do whatever you want when no one is paying attention.
So we're paying attention. Hopefully the caucus is too.