PRESS RELEASE



Schneller for Congress Campaign responds to Meehan Complaint to FCC



Thursday, February 3, 2011    2:00 PM (EST)
Contact : Candidate Jim Schneller | 610-688-9471 | info@Jim4US.com


    Jim Schneller, candidate for congress' 7th district-PA, has filed an answer to the Delaware County, PA GOP's complaint regarding the Schneller election finance reports filed in the Fall and/or Winter of 2010.  The answer is reprinted here.  

     The Schneller campaign was falsely accused, in the GOP complaint to the FCC.   The candidate reacts :  " This was retaliation for daring to run against the republican party.  This was an attempt to top off the Meehan campaign's efforts to spin their opponents as error-ridden.    And this was an attempt to trip up the Schneller campaign as we continue to demand investigation, and a freeing of the 2010 election and the ballot from the clutches of a machine that went too far."


    In response to the Pennsylvania Attorney General's indictment of a Delaware County GOP operative for petition-related charges, Schneller notes:

"
1)  the Attorney General should be investigating all 157 petition pages of the Meehan petition, as our campaign has been encouraging and continues to litigate in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 

2)  Mr. Meehan, knowing of these matters, had a duty to not proceed to office.  Likewise ex-governor Rendell had a duty to not certify the vote from the Seventh District, which he, by law, was supposed to refrain from.

3) Congress did not heed the Schneller request to hold off on seating Mr. Meehan despite the campaign's serving of a protest on each and every member of Congress, after the Christmas recess.

   There is a pattern of wrongdoing here that supports our claim that the election statutes are in place for a purpose, and any candidate that runs through them uncaringly is unfit for office. "


___________________________

Jeff S. Jordan, Kim Collins
Federal Election Commission
Department of Complaints and Legal Administration
999 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20463

Re: Complaint No. MUR 6433



To the Federal Election Commission:


Thank you for the extension of time granted to our campaign to submit a response to the complaint registered by Andy Reilly, apparently for the Delaware County, Pennsylvania Republican party, but filed on letterhead entitled "Delaware County Republican Finance Committee." This is our response, signed as an affidavit by me, the treasurer and candidate.

We have been continually saddened by the acts of the complainant during this campaign and apologize for your having to review this case. It appears to center on a $100.00 cost of notarization of nominating petitions. Because of the negligible amount in question and the amorphous nature of the claim, and because our campaign had stated by way of responses to the media, that all the complainant had to do was view our latest report to the Commission, to see the stated charge for legal costs, therefore the complainant had a duty to check their facts and the law before burdening all concerned with their claims. If they did, then their complaint is a sham. I attach a copy of the complainant's letter that was released to the press before the election. I ask an explanation why a new letter was then registered with you after the election.

We deny the complaint in the entirety, other than some foundational statements regarding circulation of nomination papers ( petitions for lesser candidates are called "papers" in Pennsylvania), and a notarizing party, depositions, and some degree of truth to purported democrat party infiltration of our signature gathering, although the motives of any such infiltration cannot be quantified in any way conclusive.

We pursue two different cases in Pennsylvania regarding the complainant, one seeking completion, resumption, and inter-cooperation between investigation the Pennsylvania Attorney General and Secretary of the Commonwealth, regarding debilitating fraud in the nominating petition of the complainant's candidate Patrick L. Meehan, 61 MAP 2010, and the second requesting recanvass of the voting machines in this election due to reports of illegal activities in the process of election returns and the general unreliability of the voting machines in use in this district. 2762 CD 2010.


Answer To Allegations

We respond to false statements of the complainant concisely:

No democrat or Lentz for Congress workers circulated any petitions on this campaign's behalf other than circulators who did so under the guise of being volunteers for this campaign, without revealing any of the alleged ties nor ulterior motive,

This campaign would not have fallen short of the required number of sugnatures without the alleged assistance, but rather, I applied resources to other facets, that was otherwise available to top off the petition totals, had said workers not appeared to circulate for us. 

There is a feasible interpretation of paragraph 2 on page 2 that circulators for this campaign worked for the Lentz petition drive or served in a civil action filed against the republican campaign. This is false and is a bending and spin that are not appropriate for a complaint filed in your office. The entire set of charges regarding party loyalties is denied as being outside of this campaign's knowledge, and rumor.

The deposition statements by the notary must stand as stated, although the witness was far more cooperative with the republican party's attorneys and in fact was uncooperative with this campaign's questions. I am proud to have testified honestly as has been a hallmark of this campaign.



Legal Questions

The legal questions are whether we have failed to report in-kind contribution(s) for notary services, and whether the Lentz campaign likewise had any duty to report any such disbursement. 

We made no payment to any circulators for their services, providing at most campaign brochures for handing out.


The $ 100.00 fee for notarization stated in the complaint, which has never been proven, and falls below the $ 200.00 threshold for itemization, is also technically not a fee per se because, as was revealed in the deposition, the notary register does not contain any entries for the 118 pages notarized at the notary party. A notary who failed to keep a register of all his official acts, or failed to register certain acts, could not recover compensation for the unregistered acts. Black v. City of Pittsburgh., 109 A. 616, 266 Pa. 97, Sup.1920. 88 of these pages were those pages collected by myself, the candidate, personally, and so I became concerned about the in-kind nature of the service, despite our inability to ascertain actual payment, nor the payor, and we reported the contribution as in-kind, as part of legal costs in the October 15, 2010 quarterly, since I personally attained notarization at the notarization party, by producing these 88 pages and having them notarized, and this benefited the campaign. ( We maintain however that this was not a charge made on the committee's behalf, nor made in consultation or concert with, nor at the committee's or candidate's request or suggestion, and was, if paid, done in bad faith and malicious intent.) The disbursement is part of the $ 1423.99 outlay for "Court Fees, Legal Printing, Legal Postage." That disbursement also includes notarization fees for 2 other pages and candidate's affidavit filed with the petition on the day after the notarization party. The campaign's legal fees are noticeably diminutive, and so have a much greater percentage of costs for printing and mailing. Because I, the committee treasurer and campaign manager, untrained in the law, handle all campaign legal work pro se, our not granting myself any hourly legal fees is in line with Pennsylvania law which permits no reimbursements or other fees to pro se (untrained) litigants in any way, including in court awards of fees.

As to the other 30 pages notarized at the notary party, and 143 pages not notarized at the notary party, we reprint here our memo comment attached to our latest report of disbursements in the post-election report filed by us on December 14, 2010 :

" The committee wishes to informally report, as arguably in-kind contributions, the costs of notarization of all but two pages of candidate's nominating papers, which occurred between July 20, 2010 and August 1, 2010, totalling at $ 672.00. Having not reimbursed these costs, the committee reserves the right to request treatment of these costs under the sections regarding questionable contributions and possibly illegal contributions. The committee believes moreso that the costs fall outside of the scope of in-kind contributions, because they are not a charge made on the committee's behalf or made by a person in cooperation, consultation or concert with, or at the committee's or candidate's request or suggestion. Also, existence of the costs in a report would have deeply affected the election in a way fraudulent and libelous, and in all likelihood irreversibly. The circumstances caused the costs to be contested between the committee and individuals who paid the charges, allegedly for surreptitious reasons. Declaration of the costs in a report also stood likely of affecting future litigation. "

Simply put, since 170 or so of said petition ("paper's") pages were collected by interlopers, those pages cannot be in-kind contributions because they were not collected on behalf of the campaign nor in cooperation, consultation, nor concert with it. Rather they were collected by "volunteers" not allied with the campaign, but rather working for ulterior motives, and none of those volunteers signed any agreement nor even a sign up sheet of any kind with this campaign. 
Fewer than five pages stand as collected by circulators who collected on behalf or in concert with the campaign, and notarization fees for these fall under the $100.00 in-kind reported in October.

It is a fact that this matter remains under this committee's careful consideration, and that we have found it necessary to add said memo text in support of this response now delivered, where otherwise we may have left the matter unreported in any way, for the reasons stated. We missed the time sequence intended for reporting questionable contributions but moreso, when the facts became apparent, any "questionable" aspect rapidly became, without question, a conspiratorial aspect, one which has caused the notarization costs for the unwanted pages to remain unreported because the acts were not performed in cooperation, nor with the knowledge, of the treasurer, the manager, nor anyone in any leadership position with the campaign. No formal rejection of a nebulously in-kind service is intended by the law, although the campaign is willing to do so.

The notary whose charges have been reported as in-kind is not a campaign supporter, nor contributor.

As stated in part in the memo text, existence of the costs in question, in a report, would have deeply affected the election in a way fraudulent and libelous, and in all likelihood irreversibly. The circumstances caused the costs to remain contested between the committee and individuals who paid the charges. Reporting of the costs of notarizing ( which are synonymous with the costs of preparing nomination papers, in this case) would for the indefinite future open this and future campaigns of the candidate's to accusations of collaboration with another, opposing party and biased collaboration against the third party, neither of which are true.

We request any alleviation available pursuant to my proceeding for the duration as an untrained pro se, and pursuant to the fact that this campaign is financially at the lower end of the scale of fund availability.

We welcome, and informally request, the Commission's Advisory Opinion on any issue stated herein, and would request leave to file a memorandum of law regarding any issue deemed not sufficiently discussed.

To the extent that the complaint attempts to address torts and allegations of collusion or conspiracy, these are immaterial. We are amazed that, despite the fact that this sort of activity often occurs in cooperation between political parties, in this case, where it was inflicted on a campaign in a concealed manner, complainants' roar, now extending even to your office, has resounded unceasingly. 

I, James D. Schneller, solemnly affirm and attest that the statements made in this motion are true and correct. I understand that false statements herein are made subject to penalty of perjury. Sworn to this the 20th day of January, 2011.



James D. "Jim" Schneller
Treasurer-Candidate pro se
610-688-9471