Koziol Campaign Filing Still Not Registering - Another FEC Goof?

Today we have found out just how messed up our democratic institutions can be. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee lists a campaign in the 24th District that's been dead for almost two years. The FEC has listed Bruce Tytler's campaign as up in the 29th District, in spite of the fact that Bruce Tytler correctly listed the 24th District as the place of his campaign in his paperwork.

Now, we also see today that, in spite of the fact that Leon Koziol has publicly declared his candidacy, and claims to have over $22,000 in donated money in his campaign accounts, the FEC has no record of anyone by the name of Koziol running for Congress anywhere in America. Could it be that Koziol has been collecting money and running a campaign without filing with the FEC?

Well, it could be, but it ain't necessarily so. Although Bruce Tytler is just making his official campaign announcement now, he filed with the FEC on January 30. Koziol made his official campaign announcement earlier this week, but perhaps he made his filing earlier this week as well. If so, the FEC just might not have gotten the documents up online yet - not even in the quickly updated image review of FEC filings.

We'll have to remember to give some extra scrutiny to Koziol's filing a few weeks from now, which will reveal the donations that have been made to his campaign up to this point. We'll look to see when he made his campaign official, when he received his donations, and whether he really had $22,000 on hand at the time of his campaign announcement, as claimed.

Until such information is available, we have to give Koziol the benefit of the doubt. The FEC has proved to be slow and inaccurate too many times in the past to base charges solely upon the information that it has made available to us online.