Sid Leiken |
You remember the case of Sid Leiken, the Springfield mayor who said he planned to run for the 4th U.S. House seat presumably against incumbent Democrat Peter DeFazio. In the month since candidate filing has opened Leiken hasn't, maybe because of the August 21 tearful press conference announcement of an "error in judgment." That concerned a $2,000 payment his campaign made to his own consulting firm, a payment that ordinarily wouldn't be legal; Leiken said it was actually just a reimbursement to an outside contractor who conducted a poll. The outside contractor was his mother.
Which sounded a little odd, but also seemed to end the story, partly since Leiken's campaign seems to have ground to a halt since. But state investigators from the Secretary of State's office have kept poking at it. And this tidbit from the blog by David Steves, of the Eugene Register-Guard, posted a few days ago, seems to call out for more attention. It refers to a response letter from Leiken's mother to the state officials:
Most recently, investigators have requested evidence that there really was a poll. That’s where the letter put out today comes in. In it, Glenda Leiken explains that, beyond a memo summarizing the poll’s results and methodology, which she submitted this summer, “no other documentation exists.†She doesn’t have any notes or computer spreadsheets used to track the results. She doesn’t have phone records, either, Leiken says.
“I used a disposable/single use phone to retain my privacy, as my cell phone is my only personal phone line,†she wrote. “The cell phone account was closed over 5 months ago and the phone company does not retain phone records for closed accounts, therefore phone records are not available.â€