Democrat candidate for Wisconsin governor Sara Rodriguez fired her campaign manager Sunday after alleging her campaign had discovered “serious mismanagement and inaccuracies in campaign finance filings she (the campaign manager) prepared.” However, Rodriguez was not transparent about the exact nature of the problems, including how long they festered, what exactly occurred, and when she learned about it.
“The Sara Rodriguez for Wisconsin campaign has terminated its campaign manager, effective today, after discovering serious mismanagement and inaccuracies in campaign finance filings she prepared,” a statement from the campaign read. “An initial review found that the manager filed inaccurate and incomplete campaign finance reports.”
“An initial review found that the manager filed inaccurate and incomplete campaign finance reports. The campaign will be in contact with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission first thing Monday morning to ensure the inaccuracies are corrected. The moment Sara learned of these inaccuracies, she acted swiftly and decisively removed her. The campaign will continue to build support to win in August and beat Tom Tiffany in November.”
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel identified the fired campaign manager as Kara Spencer.
Rodriguez’s campaign finance reports are due this week. Her last report, filed in January, reported that she raised $618,000. That report was filed late and amended twice, the Journal Sentinel noted, adding that a review of Rodriguez’s January report “shows multiple instances of what appear to be duplicate listings of contributions.”
Rodriguez is running in a Democrat primary against Francesca Hong, Mandela Barnes, Joel Brennan, and Kelda Roys. Of late, there has been a move by Democratic Party powerbrokers to consolidate around her to defeat upstarts Hong and Barnes, who have led in polls.
A source close to Republican campaigns expressed confusion over why a campaign manager was responsible for the finance reports, not a treasurer, and indicated that Republican candidates have multiple laeyers of review and oversight built into the process before reports are filed.
Who Is Kara Spencer?
Spencer is listed as the contact person on Rodriguez’s announcement press release.
Wisconsin Right Now sent Rodriguez’s campaign a series of follow-up questions.
What did Spencer do specifically?
What mismanagement, what inaccuracies, and was it criminal?
How far back do these inaccuracies go? It appears they are in already filed reports. How many?
When did Sara Rodriguez learn about them?
Why did Sara Rodriguez hire Spencer in the first place?
What oversight was there of this process?
Does the buck stop with her, the person at the top?
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