Levar Stoney was Governor McAuliffe’s Secretary of the Commonwealth which put him in charge of filling state boards and commissions. Now Stoney is running for Mayor of Richmond along with 15 other Democrat candidates including the perennial candidate Joe Morrissey. The primary is next week, June 14th.
While the Governor only gave Stoney $2,500, donors to McAuliffe’s 2013 campaign for Governor were very generous. McAuliffe donors to Stoney’s campaign have given the candidate $185,500.
Levar Stoney has raised a record breaking amount of money for this campaign, $303,641, with almost one-third of that amount, $96,440 coming from 74 donors who received appointments to state boards and commissions while Stoney was working for the Governor and recommending people to fill those positions. The other Gubernatorial candidates have raised nowhere close to what Stoney has raised. The candidates for Mayor of Richmond and their amounts raised as of June 2nd:
Jon Baliles – $16,996
Jack Berry – $159,433
Mike Dickinson – no report
Lillie Estes – $0
Brad Froman – no report
Shirley Harvey – no report
Chad Ingold – $205
Bobby Junes – no report
Joe Morrissey – $45,093
Michelle Mosby – $5,601
Nate Peterson – $1,972
Amon Rayford – no report
Chuck Richardson – no report
Alan Schintzius – $1,053
Levar Stoney – $303,641
Bruce Tyler – $7,225
Lawrence Williams – no report
Source: Virginia Public Access Project
Stoney has said that he did not begin fundraising until after he had resigned from the Governor’s office and half of his 700 donors are from the Richmond area. (I have no idea how that explains or justifies the 74 donors who Stoney helped appoint to the Governor’s boards and commissions.)
In an interview with the Richmond Times Stoney said,
“I’ve known a number of the people who gave to me for a number of years back to my time working as the executive director of the Democratic party,” said Stoney, who worked as director of the Democratic Party of Virginia from 2008 to 2009. “I’ve been able to cultivate long, long relationships with a lot of these people who gave to us.”
There. That explains it.
More on the story here.
Photo credit to Pilotonline.com
