In the Right

The only reason to switch from donating money to your campaign to loaning money to your campaign is if you intend to make efforts to get paid back.

So if Corzine wins, New Jersey will have a sitting lame duck governor (New Jersey has a two-term limit, so a Corzine victory means he's a lame duck the moment he takes his hand off the Bible after being sworn in for his second term), with no future accountability to voters -- they'll never again have the opportunity to pass judgment on him at the polls -- who has a personal financial stake in fundraising.

Remember, we're talking here about a governor who's demonstrated a certain, er, ah, tone deafness to the niceties of conflict of interest -- for instance, he dated for years the head of the most powerful state employee union in New Jersey, then gave her millions of dollars as a parting gift when they broke up.

But wait, there's more.

Apparently, Corzine has taken the position that since he is not taking public financing, he should be treated like any other Democrat running for office -- at least, in terms of money spent on his behalf from the New Jersey Democratic State Committee.

Under New Jersey law, the NJDSC is allowed to spend unlimited amounts on behalf of its gubernatorial nominee, because its gubernatorial nominee is not taking public financing. (That's one of the hitches to state law in New Jersey -- because the state offers a public financing program to gubernatorial nominees, it also has limits that go along with the public funding -- and one of the limits is that the candidate's state party committee is barred from spending money on his behalf if he takes the public money. Frankly, this limit should be tested in court as soon as possible. Jim Bopp, call your office.)

This is important, because the NJDSC isn't subject to the same fundraising limitations as the gubernatorial campaign -- whereas the gubernatorial campaign is limited to accepting no more than $3,400 from an individual contributor, the NJDSC can accept a $25,000 maximum contribution.

A check of the 48-hour reports on file at ELEC reveals that the NJDSC knows it can transfer funds directly to the Corzine for Governor campaign -- and, in fact, the NJDSC has already given the Corzine for Governor campaign a little more than $150,000 so far.

So, should he win reelection on Tuesday, Corzine will be in a position to ask people to donate $25,000 to the NJDSC, which can then turn right around and give that $25,000 to the Corzine for Governor campaign -- which can then turn around and write a check to repay Corzine $25,000 of the money he's loaned himself.

Corzine may be writing the checks -- but if he wins reelection, and sets himself up for another four years with this conflict hanging over his head, it will be New Jersey taxpayers who get stuck with the tab.

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