McHenry's original financial disclosure

The documents below were filed by Pat McHenry in February 11, 2004 as a candidate. To see them I had to go to the Cannon House Office building on Capitol Hill, write my name, address, occupation and employer into the computer that, of course, could keep track of what I viewed.

They're not available with the campaign finance reports at opensecrets dot org. The House Clerk's office publishes them in a four-set book that you can request for free. I've been told you can request these documents in some way but the woman in charge of these requests, Janice Glosson, has not returned my phone calls.See below for update.

So, just in case my car gets run off the road some dark and foggy eve, I decided to post the documents right here for everyone to see.

One thing I noted immediately on Page 5. See where McHenry lists Tech5 Corporation and writes "Former Partner."

Well, that's very interesting because the president of Tech5 corporation is none other than the publisher of the Lincoln Tribune. Why should we care, you ask? Well, I'll give you a couple of examples of the kind of unbaised hard-ball reporting on McHenry that comes out of that Lincoln Tribune:

Audience member William Hal Schronce took McHenry to task on the amount of communications McHenry’s office sends out in the mail.

“This is a waste of my tax dollars,” said Schronce. “There are a lot of people who feel the way I do.”’

The audience vehemently disagreed with Schronce, with many of them telling McHenry they like getting mailings from the Congressman’s office. McHenry said it’s just one of the ways his office keeps in touch with his constituents.

Yeah, of course. Everyone loves getting a bunch of expensive pr crap from their Congressman. That's believable. And another:

Several times during the night, McHenry drew applause for his stance on the hot-button issue of the war in Iraq.

Resident Judy Gilbert asked McHenry why he voted against a house bill that called for U.S. soldiers to spend equal time between combat and home. McHenry’s answer was swift, decisive and garnered a thunderous round of applause from the audience.

Of course, there's no mention that Publisher Jason Saine was and is the President of Tech5, a company that McHenry was a partner in months before he ran for Congress.

Here's the Tech 5 Corporation archived website files. They mysteriously disappeared from the intertubes the same month McHenry ex-staffer Aaron Lay was indicted on voter fraud charges but it's still listed by the NC Secretary of State as an active corporation.

We need to know these business ties so we can know who is writing the stories (pr puff pieces) in these local newspapers. Why should they write about him as if they are being objective when clearly they are not?

Citizens have the right to these documents by law. If you don't like that they only available at the House Clerk's office, let your congressman know. Oops, your congressman wants it this way! I guess you're shit out of luck.

UPDATE: According to the Clerk's office's Janice Glosson, "the clerk has done everything required by law." They send the copies to every state. In North Carolina, it's the State Board of Elections. What they do with it is up to each individual state, Glosson told me. And as to being available to the public in the district, again, "the clerk has done everything required by law. As to having them posted on line. Again, "The clerk has done everything required by law." And as to people in the actual district wanting to view or have copies. "That's up tot he individual states. As to the young gentleman who told me I could get request copies or that they published a book of these available for free? "I'm not going to go there." So your government at work. At least she returned my phone call, eh?



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