Campaign Finance Fact Checking

The Capital's story today on campaign finances for the County Executive's race showed in an interesting manner that fact-checking needs to be done by modern newspapers:

One of his GOP rivals noted that Mr. Leopold's war chest includes a $355,000 loan the delegate made to himself.

"I want the people's support," said Del. David G. Boschert, R-Crownsville. "I don't need to lend myself $300,000."

Mr. Leopold downplayed the loan, saying it was left over from previous campaigns.

I bolded the most important part of that statement, and the part that can be most easily fact checked, as all reports of the John Leopold Campaign Committee are available online.

• At the close of the 2002 Election Cycle, Leopold's committee showed a cash balance of $20,859.88, with $92,000.00 outstanding in loans
• One year later, at the close of the reporting period from 1/9/03-1/14/04, the campaign showed a balance of $217,020.35, including $197,263.83 in new loans.
• At the close of the reporting period from 1/15/04-1/12/05, the campaign showed $66,000.00 in new loans.
  
• At the close of the period that closed yesterday, the Leopold campaign showed no additional loans.
  

Leopold currently has $355,263.83 in money he has loaned to his committee outstanding. Since the start of the campaign finance cycle 2003-2006, John Leopold has loaned his committee $263,263.83, well over half of the money that he has raised and nearly three times the amount of the outstanding loans from his previous campaigns. Why the Capital chose not to fact check Delegate Leopold's comments does not stand up to pass journalistic muster. Delegate Leopold's decision to exaggerate how much of his war chest he loaned to his campaign will be scrutinized more closely by the voters in the September 12th primary.