#ncga: Traveling & Eating (on special interests’ dime) with Jason

Only in America — specifically North Carolina and the NCGOP — can a guy go from broke and unemployed to making major financial decisions for the future of the state and getting showered with cash.  It’s good to be Jason Saine.

We’ve had quite a bit of fun scrutinizing Jason’s campaign reports — you know, since NO ONE ELSE appears to be interested in doing it.  This tubby little parasite has had no opposition for the last two campaign cycles.  Yet, he’s amassed and spent six figures a year (mostly on himself).

There was the whole $19,0000 worth of clothes thing.  Most of us don’t have anywhere near $19,000 in clothing in our closets.  Yet Jason said he needed to spend that money because he’s FAT.

Folks have found all kinds of omissions and errors in his reports You would hope the chairman of the FINANCE committee would do better with tracking the dollars and cents. 

It looks like Jason has been handed off to Colin McMichael –the NCGOP’s guru for filling out those campaign finance forms.  (So, I’m betting his future reports won’t be as hysterical as they have been.) 

In the meantime, we have Saine’s end of year 2017 report to chew on.  Again, there were no campaigns or elections (other than various city council and local races) in 2017.

Yet, Jason lists a July 2017 payment to 3AG, Inc. of Cary for “Campaign Management.”  (The official address for 3AG is a Cary residence.  The most recent previous employment we could find for the company’s registered agent was as a “senior analyst” at Countrywide. Further Internet searches found that 3AG specializes in “business services” and “..manufacturing … importing …exporting.” Not a word about campaign management.)

There is also a lot of travel and eating-out expense at locations around the country.  There was the airfare charged to the campaign in July, August, October and November.  (Is the 97th so big you need to fly across it?)

There was the hotel stay in Charleston, SC in October.  There were the hotel stays in northern Virginia in September and October.  There was the Hyatt Regency in Chicago in July.

And the Honorable Mr. Saine has been quite judicious in sampling the delicacies of many of our 50 states.  In December, there was pizza in Nashville, TN.  There was Pappasito’s Cantina in Dallas, TX in November.

There was the August meal at Boston, MA’s trendy Oak+Rowan.

Campaign funds are meant to be spent on communicating with constituents and getting reelected.  No residents of Boston can vote in House District 97.  I’m sure none of the folks at Pappasito’s can, either.

Saine’s campaign fund — like so many other committee chairmen – is stocked mostly by lobbyists, PACs and others with interests before his committee and the House.  So, these people are basically buying him flights across the country, stays in nice hotels, and nice dinners.

I hear Jason has a primary challenger this year.  You folks in Lincoln County can keep tolerating this guy getting wined, dined, and jetted by special interests in exchange for god-knows-what.  Or you can look around.