Editorial: Baker needs to be transparent on shadowy dollars

[unhappycamper]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/editorials/2016/03/25/baker-needs-transparent-shadowy-dollars/PmRHfItTpnLeLWzSKoiOiO/story.html



Baker needs to be transparent on shadowy dollars
March 26, 2016

During his days as a health insurance executive, Charles D. Baker Jr. was a big advocate of transparency. Consumers deserved as many details as possible about cost and quality, and, armed with them, would make smart, informed, cost-conscious decisions, he said.

~snip~

When it serves his purposes, yes, but other times, not so much. As the Globe’s Frank Phillips has reported, Baker and his team have recently undertaken two fund-raising operations that hardly seem transparent at all.

In the first, Team Baker raised more than $300,000 to fund efforts to consolidate his grip on the Massachusetts Republican State Committee. He used that money to field or bolster candidates battling the right-wingers who controlled many of the state committee seats. But Baker refuses to say whom that money was raised from or to detail how it was spent. If the governor tapped his usual donor list, however, he and his group were soliciting contributions from some people with business before his administration.

In the second instance, the Baker operation has been part of an elaborate scheme that shuffles money between federal and state committees in a way that sidesteps contribution limits and muddies the money trail.