Cook: Democratic & Republican Party Fundraising Reports

Last week, the major political parties in Arkansas submitted their quarterly fundraising and expenditure reports to the Secretary of State.

From April 1 to June 30 of 2013, here’s the fundraising and spending breakout for the Democratic and Republic Party of Arkansas based on the state reports.

Democratic Party of Arkansas
Raised = $290,780
Spent = $16,071

Republic Party of Arkansas
Raised $116,016
Spent = $145,964

The largest donation to the Democratic Party was from Entergy in the amount of $30,000. The DPA also received $26,000 from Pinnacle Structures in Cabot and $25,000 from Southland Racing.

The Republic Party largest single donation was for $5,000 and they received it from a few different sources.

Through quirks in the state and federal laws, it’s difficult to determine how much cash on hand each party has in their accounts. However, each party must report to the Federal Election Commission the amount of money in their federal accounts.

On June 30, the DPA reported they had $67,002 on hand in their federal accounts and the RPA reported $45,349.

In their respective non-federal accounts (soft money), both political parties could be flush with cash, or broke, but we don’t know since it’s not required to be reported.

Both the Democrats and the Republicans held major fundraising events last quarter, but casino online based on the figures reported by the RPA, it doesn”t appear their event was as financially successful as the Democrats” event.

And to be fair, the DPA told the press they raised 600k for their Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, but their state quarterly report only shows $290,780 raised. I”ll look into this and report back, but I suspect the weird federal reporting requirements can explain the discrepancy.

You”ll also notice that in the disbursements reported, it doesn”t appear the DPA spent much money last quarter. Once again, a quirk in state and federal reporting requirements account for the difference in expenditures between the two political parties.

It appears the RPA reports all expenditures to the Secretary of State, even though legally they are not required to report federal activities. The DPA follows the letter the of law and only reports non-federal expenditures to the state.

Basically, when you add up the reported DPA”s expenditures from the FEC and state reports it turns out they spent $296,024 last quarter.

The political parties are once again stockpiling campaign cash.