{"id":10598,"date":"2011-07-22T12:54:29","date_gmt":"2011-07-22T16:54:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=10598"},"modified":"2011-07-22T12:54:29","modified_gmt":"2011-07-22T16:54:29","slug":"john-edwards-campaign-experiencing-a-different-kind-of-transparency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/10598\/john-edwards-campaign-experiencing-a-different-kind-of-transparency\/","title":{"rendered":"John Edwards Campaign Experiencing a Different Kind of Transparency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rollcall.com\/news\/fec_orders_edwards_to_pay_back_23_million-207549-1.html?ET=rollcall:e10630:80108870a:&amp;st=email&amp;pos=epol \" target=\"_blank\"><em>Roll Call<\/em><\/a> reports that former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has been ordered by the Federal Election Commission to repay nearly $2.3 million in misused matching funds.<\/p>\n<p>The FEC\u2019s order follows a legally required audit of Edwards\u2019 campaign after the candidate took taxpayer money in return for capping his expenditures.\u00a0 It turns out Edwards exceeded the cap and violated the law.\u00a0 (For those familiar with Edwards\u2019 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.charlotteobserver.com\/2011\/07\/22\/2472272\/hunter-young-aided-prosecutors.html\" target=\"_blank\">post-2008 history<\/a>, it\u2019s no surprise his fiscal excess rose to the level of his personal excess.)<\/p>\n<p>What does this have to do with campaign finance law?\u00a0 Plenty.<\/p>\n<p>To supporters, one of the goals of campaign finance laws is to increase the amount of transparency in who funds a candidate.\u00a0 That goal is much easier to achieve when the hook of federal auditing is swallowed along with matching funds.\u00a0 Like most liberals, John Edwards is relentlessly supportive of increasing government oversight on just about everything.\u00a0 Now, the very transparency and oversight he championed for others is unearthing all kinds of sordid details he would surely prefer stay out of view.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe Edwards\u2019 inner libertarian will awaken and he\u2019ll become an advocate for less government and more privacy.\u00a0 If nothing else, he would be well advised in the future to practice a lot more discretion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Roll Call reports that former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards has been ordered by the Federal Election Commission to repay nearly $2.3 million in misused matching funds. The FEC\u2019s order follows a legally required audit of Edwards\u2019 campaign after the candidate took taxpayer money in return for capping his expenditures.\u00a0 It turns out Edwards exceeded [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2897,2622,766,719,801],"class_list":["post-10598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-2008-elections","tag-campaign-finance","tag-federal-election-commission","tag-john-edwards","tag-privacy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10598"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10601,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10598\/revisions\/10601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}