What’s going on with Ismael Ozanne’s campaign finances?

Today was a little bit like Christmas here at Blogging Blue HQ. After all, last night was the deadline for campaigns to file their July 2014 Continuing Reports outlining their campaign contributions and expenses since January 2014.

Ismael Ozanne headshotAs I perused the July Continuing Report for Democratic Attorney General candidate Ismael Ozanne (pictured, left) I was left with questions.

For instance, according to the Continuing Report filed by Ozanne’s campaign in January 2014, his campaign had an ending cash balance for that reporting period of $50,930 – but his campaign curiously started the next reporting period with a cash balance of $61,564. Those numbers should match up, leaving me to wonder why there’s a discrepancy of $10,634 between those two numbers.

And speaking of discrepancies, Ozanne’s July Continuing Report included $19,262 in expenses itemized as checks or ATM withdrawals without any additional details outlining what those checks or ATM withdrawals paid for. That’s no small amount of money, and per Wisconsin campaign finance laws, campaigns must describe the specific political purpose of every expenditure. There are no descriptions for any of the checks or ATM withdrawals made by the Ozanne campaign, leaving unanswered questions about what those expenditures were used for.

And finally – and perhaps most telling – while the Ozanne campaign’s January Continuing Report listed J. Corkey Custer as the campaign’s treasurer, the campaign’s July Continuing Report lists Ismael Ozanne as the treasurer. It’s unusual to see a statewide campaign switch treasurers mid-race, and given the questions surrounding the Ozanne campaign’s most recent finance report, it’s all the more unusual.

I emailed the Ozanne campaign to attempt to get answers to some of the questions pertaining to the campaign’s most recent campaign finance report, but I have not received a response. If the Ozanne campaign does respond, I will be sure to provide an update.

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