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[Corrected and updated 6-28-24 6 pm]
For once, the town’s Democrats and Republicans agree – at least the leadership of their respective town committees do...It’s all thanks to the state Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF), which has sought to be more thorough in identifying the sources of political funds. And thanks to that push, some $8,000 in the accounts of the Franklin Democrat Town Committee (DTC), attributed to earnings from pizza slice sales at last year’s July 4 celebration, drew OCPF scrutiny.
Because the money came from hundreds of individual cash transactions, OCPF considered it a collection of cash donations and for the first time ever, at least in the memory of anyone in Franklin, asked where the names of the “donors” were? That request, which seemed to fly in the face of common sense, was followed by a demand that the DTC give up the money and was followed by a proscription that names would have to be collected this year for all sales during the July 4 celebration that begins next week.
OCPF followed that with a call to the treasurer of the Franklin Republican Town Committee (RTC), issuing the same edict for the corn dog and nacho sales that they rely on each year.
After communications between the RTC and DTC, both agreed to cooperate in seeking a ‘better deal’ from OCPF.
State Rep Jeff Roy, by then involved deeply in trying to get to the bottom of things, tried, with limited success, he said, to deescalate things and made the suggestion that the regulations or enabling legislation should be clarified or made more lenient for such small dollar amounts.
Roy said he talked to a number of people at OCPF, including the director. They said, “these are the regs and we aren’t changing,” Roy explained. “I told them this was crazy and we had been doing it differently in Franklin for decades,” Roy explained.
In response, he said, OCPF said, `be glad we are only going back one or two years.’ He did get them to agree that maybe the rule could be changed and agreed, initially, to work with him to clarify the regs to allow for what the Franklin DTC and RTC have always done. And it seemed initially that they would consider working with him to propose new legislation.
However, he later got a call saying that OCPF didn’t want to work with him because they felt any easing of the rules would only invite abuse.
Roy said he was surprised that the RTC had been contacted because he had thought initially it was just the Franklin DTC getting squeezed. He said he has since learned that a small number of political town committees around the state are facing the same ‘crackdown.’
From here, the road is uncertain.
Roy brokered an agreement that the Franklin DTC will donate $1500 to a charity as a `penalty’ but can keep the balance of the $8,000 – some $6,500. Roy said he also advised the Franklin DTC to continue to do what they have always done and challenge OCPF to try to enforce the regulation. “They don’t have enforcement power and Attorney General Campbell would never prosecute a group of volunteers,” he said.
For now, via text, DTC Chair Rachel Plukas said she is playing it safe and her food booth volunteers will be gathering as many names and addresses as possible but not requiring it for a purchase.
And, she shared a later email from Roy that provides further hope. “I wanted to report that it appears I now do have agreement with OCPF on legislation that will correct the problem we discussed,” Roy wrote.
Dashe Videira, Chair of the Franklin Republican Town Committee said, “until the legislation becomes a reality, the Republican booth will make every effort to gather ‘donor’ information. We respect the rules of OCPF and want to remain in compliance. However, we hope the community will embrace us collecting information the week of July 4th as we know it is contrary to the spirit of this event.”
“We are hopeful there can be a better resolution in the future,” she added.
