The “savior” of
Charlestown Republicans screws up her own organization – for the second time
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| Tina Jackson (left) claims to be the fishermen's friend...but keeps mismanaging their organization |
For the second time, failed Republican candidate for state
Representative (District 36) Tina Jackson has had the corporate charter of her
lobbying organization revoked by the Secretary of State. Click
here.
Jackson was hand-picked by out-going state GOP chair Mark
Zacarria to run against incumbent Rep. Donna Walsh (D). Jackson’s campaign blew
up after the Westerly
Sun revealed Jackson has a long criminal record, arrested multiple times
for DUI, passed forged prescriptions for narcotics, assault and battery,
passing bad checks, etc. Jackson was beaten two to one by Donna in the general
election.
Most recently, Jackson was once again tapped by Zaccaria. Despite her criminal record and election failure, Zaccaria picked Jackson to “re-organize” the Charlestown Republican Town Committee. Unknown to Zaccaria, Charlestown Republicans had already reorganized themselves and that resulted in a very loud and cantankerous February 4 “reorganization” meeting at the Breachway Grill.
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| Jackson's campaign website was loaded with five-year old pictures of her on fishing boats. She has definitely been "out to sea" in meeting basic organizational requirements |
For all her many documented failings, one thing you can say
about Tina Jackson is that she’s consistent in her disregard for the rule of
law.
Jackson runs a lobbying group called the American
Alliance of Fishermen and their Communities (AAFC). She lobbies at the
State House on fisheries issues and also on RI Tea Party and RI Statewide
Coalition issues.
According to the Secretary
of State’s lobbyist disclosure database, she has not filed required
lobbyist disclosure reports.
She also doesn’t file routine annual reports and that led to
the first revocation of her group’s corporate charter in June 2011. It took her
almost a year to resolve that delinquency which caused the first charter revocation. She won reinstatement in May 2012 just before she filed her candidacy papers.
During those 11 months when AAFC’s corporate charter was
revoked, it was barred from operating, but since Jackson wasn’t filing lobbyist
reports anyway, it was just one more little detail to be ignored.
As of January 14th, the AAFC’s charter was
revoked by Secretary of State Ralph Mollis for a second time. The revocation
notice specifically revokes AAFC’s ability “to transact business in this
state.”
As
I recently revealed, Jackson has also failed to file her last three
campaign finance reports and has drawn notices of violation from the state
Board of Elections and fines that are increasing daily. As of this writing,
these violations have not been remedied.
As a Democrat, I suppose I should just smile and sit back
and watch the local Republicans contend with Zaccaria’s ill-conceived idea of
making Tina Jackson the new face of Charlestown Republicans. But even though I
have no direct stake in this, it just strikes me as profoundly wrong that a
person with a record like Jackson’s would be a major party’s pick to run for
public office or become a party leader.
But in the end, it’s the Republicans’ decision to make and
they will be the ones to have to live with the consequences.
