New York Republicrat Jack Davis Accused Of Bribing Independence Party Officials To Get Their Election Line In November

It took Ted Stevens decades to get into the swing of accepting bribes from big companies in return for special legislative favors. Jack Davis isn't even waiting to get elected to get into the swing of things. In New York, Republican Jack Davis, may have switched parties in a fit of spoiled rage when Dick Cheney refused to meet with him, but his heart and soul-- or whatever right-wingers have instead of them-- are as Republican as Karl Rove's. Immediately after being thrown out of a Republican fundraiser-- he had donated $2,000-- Davis declared that he was a Democrat and, in revenge, ran for Congress against Tom Reynolds in 2004. Fined by the FEC for campaign irregularities, he poured $1.2 million of his own wealth into the race. He managed to get 44% of the vote and ran again in 2006 campaigning on a platform of hateful xenophobia. In that race he also managed to buy himself the nomination of the Independence Party (for a cool million dollars). And that brings us to why you're reading about Jack Davis today.

Apparently he decided to get himself the Independence Party nomination on the cheap this year. He's challenging Jon Powers for the Democratic nomination and Powers is expected to win handily against the very disliked Davis, regardless of all the money he's pumping into the race. His threat to run on the Independent line would give him the opportunity to wreak havoc on the electoral process in November. So, it appears, he set out to buy it again, although in a more direct way than last time. He's been surreptitiously paying off the wives of the Independence Party county chairmen. Like I said, the man changed his party registration but he's still a Republican at heart.

According to today's Buffalo News Davis has been bribing Independence Party officials through their wives.

Democratic congressional hopeful Jack Davis paid $5,000 each to the wives of the Monroe and Erie county party chairmen. Davis paid $5,000 to the wife of Monroe County Independence Chairman Rafael Colon (using her maiden name of Blanca Semidey) and $5,000 to a new corporation based in Florida and headed by Judith Orsini, wife of Erie County Independence Chairman Tony Orsini.

Davis and Orsini said the payments were for legitimate "consulting services."

After the story ran, Monroe's Independence leaders tried for eight days to track down Colon. According to interim Chairman Walter Schiemann, when Colon finally did acknowledge their calls, the leaders demanded his resignation for taking a "bribe."

"It's definitely a bribe-- absolutely," he told The News in a story published Tuesday.

Jon Powers is going to need all the help he can get to fight off this free-spending Republican disguised as a Democrat. He has been busy putting up fake Rovian web sites to slander Powers. Please consider donating to his campaign-- right here on our Blue America ActBlue page.

UPDATE: