Marathon Pundit: Where is the outrage? Dem atty gen'l group takes $50K from International Profit Associates

Friday, November 09, 2007

Where is the outrage? Dem atty gen'l group takes $50K from International Profit Associates

My good friend Dan Curry of Reverse Spin has been on top of the International Profit Associates story for months.

Last year the New York Times wrote an expose about the Buffalo Grove, Illinois firm.

An excerpt:

Federal authorities are pressing a sexual harassment suit against the company on behalf of 113 former female employees.

The Illinois attorney general is investigating accusations of deceptive marketing tactics, officials say, and the company has been the subject of 470 complaints to the Better Business Bureau across the nation in the past three years.

Hillary Clinton's campaign has received over $150,000 in contributions from executives of the International Profit Associates--none of that cash has been returned.

Last year--months after the New York Times article was published--the International Profit Associates donated a whopping $50,000 to the Democratic Attorneys General Association.

From the group's mission statement:

The Democratic Attorneys General Association, (DAGA) is a national political organization formed to support the election of Democrats to the office of attorney general in all of the states and territories of the United States. DAGA makes contributions to and expenditures on behalf of Democratic candidates for attorney general and contributions to state and local Democratic Party committees as appropriate. DAGA also provides political consulting, technical assistance, candidate training, talent recruitment and other general political support services for sitting Democratic attorneys general and candidates for the vital office.

The office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is investigating IPA. Madigan is a Democrat, although I don't know if she's a member of this organization and I haven't found any contributions from DAGA to her campaign.

This article excerpt is from Lynn Sweet's Chicago Sun-Times blog, the piece was written by Chris Fusco:

Madigan has received $20,200 in cash and in-kind contributions from IPA and its employees but has not returned any of that. Madigan spokeswoman Robyn Ziegler said the contributions all were made prior to Madigan being attorney general. Madigan has no plans to accept future IPA donations, Ziegler said.

Like Madigan, Clinton has not returned IPA-related donations. The not-for-profit Center For Responsive Politics has calculated that the firm is responsible for $129,400 in contributions to her since 2000.

Three years ago, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission began an investigation of over 100 sexual harassment claims made by female employees of the firm, which caught the attention of the Oprah Show.

From Curry's blog, Reverse Spin:

There are 31 Democratic state Attorneys General and more than a few of them, like Andrew Cuomo of New York, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Marc Dann of Ohio, and Lisa Madigan of Illinois, fashion themselves as activist crusaders for consumers and small businesses.