Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Tina Jackson does it again

The “savior” of Charlestown Republicans screws up her own organization – for the second time
Tina Jackson (left) claims to be the fishermen's friend...but keeps
mismanaging their organization
By Will Collette
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.
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During those 11 months when AAFC’s corporate charter was revoked, it was barred from operating, but since Jackson wasn’t filing lobbyist reports anyway, it was just one more little detail to be ignored.

As of January 14th, the AAFC’s charter was revoked by Secretary of State Ralph Mollis for a second time.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.