ResponsibleOhio’s Payments to ProgressOhio missing from Campaign Finance Reports

ProgressOhio Budget distributed to Board Members showing their projected income from The Strategy Network, the company owned by Ian James who is Responsible Ohio’s Executive Director. The payments were for their work on Responsible Ohio’s behalf.

As reported in a earlier post (reposted from another source) ProgressOhio received large sums of money from The Strategy Group for work on ResponsibleOhio’s Marijuana monopoly campaign. This is in addition to funds that came personally from Stephen Letourneau, Ian James’s business partner and husband. 

We have an update: If you look at the campaign finance reports for ResponsibleOhio, the payments to ProgressOhio are not there.

This is just like Columbus’s Red Light Scandal, one party gives money to another, to donate directly in order to avoid publicizing their quid- pro-quo relationship.

Side note: What is “Opp Research” in this budget? Its money received by ProgressOhio to pay Brian Hester to do opposition research on the competing entity, Responsible Ohioans for Cannabis. Again Brian’s name is missing from campaign finance report.

See the campaign finance report here, can you see whats missing?

So how does this work?

1. Powerful donors give ResponsibleOhio money, which they funnel to a LLC. In this case, The Strategy Group, which is suppose to doing “PETITION CONSULTING” (as described in the expense note reported to the SOS)
2. The Strategy Group, being a “independent” contractor “hires” ProgressOhio, to not gather petition, but to be a advocate  for ResponsibleOhio’s plan. This biased relationship is never disclosed to the public, and ProgressOhio continues to push  the Constitutional Amendment as though they had nothing to gain.

As you can see from the budget, they had a lot to gain financially! and this budget only goes through Jan 2015. How much did they receive between January and today?

Does ProgressOhio dispute these facts?

Payments to ProgressOhio & Brian Hester missing from reports filed with the state