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Schor is a master at raising money
June 22, 2021
I've compiled the details from the 9 campaign
finance reports he has submitted since the 2016 election. (I downloaded
them from the Ingham County Clerk's website.)
I also attempted to determine which
individuals/companies/groups/PACs were the biggest contributors. Here
are the ones who contributed over $1000:
Here is the detail from which I compiled the above
totals.
Some of the contributions came from
fundraisers:
Date # Attendees Type Location Total Contributions Cost 7/19/2018 70 Beer Tasting 209 N. Capitol, Suite 1 $9,550 $0 12/10/2019 35 Holiday Happy Hour 420 E. Michigan Ave
(Nuthouse) $2,000 $213.98 11/16/2020 0 (cancelled) 518 E. Shiawassee $9,850 $0
Here are the expenditures reported for
11/28/2017-12/31/2020;
Amount
Back in April 2018, in a story called
Overkill: Candidate Schor outspent Brown Clarke
by over $200,000, I said
"$90,000 left over from his state representative
campaign account." Maybe that is the answer. At the time he decides to
run for higher office - governor, U.S. representative, U.S. senator -
he'll be able to transfer to that campaign the money he has left in his
mayoral campaign account.
In addition to his Schor for Lansing campaign
finance committee, he has a Section 527 account to raise money for
contributions and expenses unrelated to his mayoral campaign. I
wrote about it in November
2019. Those reports are posted to the IRS website. He has submitted 5
electronic reports covering all of 2019 and 2020, but none as yet for
2021. Unlike the campaign finance reports, the 527 reports don't provide
beginning and ending balances, but do provide contribution and
expenditure totals: Period
Contributions Expenditures
1/1/2019-12/31/2019 25,338 22,707
1/1/2020-3/31/2020 15,565 7,248
4/1/2020-6/30/2020 3,096 25,900
7/1/202-09/30/2020 716 6,250
10/1/2020-12/31/2020 1,559 2,551 TOTAL: 46,274 64,656
Apparently he had a large balance in the account
before he started reporting electronically. Here is the detail on
contributions:
527
contributions sorted by contributor
Here are the employers/employees who contributed
$1,000 or more:
Some of the reported "expenditures" for the 2019-2020
period were actual expenses, but the bulk was donations to community
groups and events. I present them separately below, but in some
instances it was hard to tell which was an expense and which was a
donation:
I suspect that using 527 funds for donations is
uncommon. Former mayor Virg Bernero didn't do it - in fact, he spent a
lot on personal stuff unrelated to the holding of office, including 980
restaurant meals over his 12 years as mayor. You can see them in my
11-page
compilation of expenditures sorted by purpose. The meals start on
page 4.
He also spent nearly $5,000 on flowers from Fortino's Flowers in
Pontiac. Turns out that shop is owned by family.
How can Schor be faulted for making all those
donations? For one thing, it is not his money. It is contributed by
businesses who probably want something from his administration. His
generosity is with other people's money.
In addition, those donations are likely to make
recipients feel more favorably toward the mayor and more likely to vote
for him. It is a clever campaign tactic.
Send comments, questions, and tips to
stevenrharry@gmail.com or call or text
me at 517-730-2638. If you'd like to be notified by email when I post a
new story, let me know.
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Public
Policy
I can't wait for July 23. That's when the
pre-primary campaign finance reports are due and we'll be able to see how
much Andy Schor has raised so far this year - how much he's raised on
top of the $179,750 he had in his Schor for Lansing campaign account at
the end of 2020. Since November 2017, after he defeated Judi Brown Clark
in his first race for mayor -