The Pennsylvania Treasury site contains a link to e-Contracts where taxpayers/the public can search to see what contracts were let out by state agencies.
SOP performed a search of the House Democratic Caucus to determine what types of contracts it makes on behalf of the Democratic legislators belonging to this LEGISLATIVE body. Please don't confuse the House Democratic Caucus with the House Democratic Campaign Committee. The later is the political body used for election purposes.
The first interesting contract was made with StrongMail. From their website one can ascertain its type of business.
StrongMail enables businesses to reach, engage and influence their target audience. We can help you improve your email marketing campaign performance, boost deliverability and lower costs, while extending your reach to new audiences using social media.
Contract Number HDC02060809 is for an "Email Marketing Server" plus software and support. It goes from Friday, May 22, 2009 to Friday, May 21, 2010.
The next contract is with Listrak, Ltd to furnish email services to the House Democratic Caucus. What makes this contract interesting is that it was signed by Christine Zarek who's name appears multiple times during Grand Jury testimony in the Bonusgate investigation.
Contract Number HDC01052510 states "Whereas the Client desires to communicate on legislative issues with the residents of the Commonwealth". The amount of the contract is for $20,000.00. It's term is from Saturday, May 1, 2010 to Friday, December 31, 2010. Now anyone with half a brain knows that the term coincides with the election season. There is no good reason to terminate legislative issue notification to Commonwealth residents on December 31st except that election season is over.
Lables and Lists obtained a VOTER FILE AGREEMENT in 2008 for the purpose of providing an enhanced voter regsitration file to the PADITO. The contract amount was $9,600.00. NOTE: PADITO= Pennsylvania Democratic Informtaion Technologies Office.
This agreement is very clear it is for voter names, not constituent names.
Lables and Lists, Inc. goes on to receive a contract to provide statewide constituent data files to the House Democratic Caucus from Thurday, January 08, 2009 to Thursday, December 31 2009 in the amount of $49,500.00.
This contract seems to contradict the Code of Conduct posted by the House Democratic Caucus on its website about the prohibition of political activity by its members and staff. Keep in mind that many constituents are not registered voters.
According to the contract terms with Labels and ListsItem 4. Provision of Constituent Files it states a. Creation of Constituent Files Labels and Lists hereby agrees to create and supply to the PADITO two specially formatted and electronically processed copies of the Pennsylvania constituent file. The base data for these files will be obtained from publicly available lists of all Pennsylvania voters in each county of the state. These data will then be processed to create statewide data files of uniform format and will be enhanced to matches of national telephone databases and the U.S. Post Office's National Change of Address(NCOA) and Locatable Address Corrections System(LACS). The copies of the file will then be processed into a format specified by the PADITO. The final enhanced files shall be referred to as the "PADTIO Constituent Files".
It gets better. b. Delivery Dates Labels and Lists shall provide the PADITO with two PADITO Constituent Files during the year 2009. The date of delivery of the files will be the sole determination of the PADITO but no earlier than 30 days following notification of Labels and Lists of the requested dates. Item c covers Use and Ownership of PADITO Constituent File Data. Two elections per year, furnishing two files per year, really not that hard to figure out.
But then it gets to item d. Transfer of Raw County Data Files. Labels and Lists agrees to provide to the PADITO, at the latter's request and at no additional charge, copies of all the raw county or state voter files acquired and used by Labels and Lists as the basis for the creation of the PADITO Constituent Files.
Let's roll back to a previous post by SOP from December 30, 2009. It refers to emails at a different time about the "incumbent protection program" put together by Eachus et al found on CasablancaPA.com.
THE VEON PAPERS
EXHIBIT F
Attachment 11
Document and mails shoping John Paul Jones performing House Democratic Campaign Committee campaign work on state time using state resources in 2007 under Todd Eachus' supervision.
From: Jones, John Paul
Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2006 11:28 AM
To: Manzo, Michael; Cott, Brett
Cc: Manzo, Rachel
Subject: Incumbent Protection Meetings.
GOALS;
1. TO FOCUS, COORDINATE, AND DIRECT CAUCUS RESOURCES FOR THE PURPOSE OF INCUMBENT PROTECTION.
2. TO AVOID DUPLICATION OF INCUMBENT PROTECTION FUNCTIONS BETWEEN CAUCUS STAFF/offices.
3. To notify key caucus staff and leadership of progress (or lack thereof) by individual incumbents with regards to incumbent protection.
4. To share information across offices in order to constantly improve incumbent protection activities.
Meeting Composition:
Chairs- Rep. Eachus,
Mike Manzo,
Brett Cott
Leader's office- Paul Parsells
LCO- Chris Zarek
LRO- Jen Brubaker
OMS- Eric Webb
Approp.- Miriam Fox
ODA- Scott Casper
Policy Com-Rachel Manzo
Secretary-Mike Risch
Comm.-Barb Grill & Bill Patton
HDCC- Dan W. & Jess W.
F/R- Erin Madison
Misc. Staff- Jon Price, Bob Caton
Seems like things haven't really changed in the House Democratic Caucus political activity using taxpayer funds. If they were truly interested in Constituent Data files all they had to do was purchase public mailing addresses. This contract includes the identification of cell phone numbers, county and state voter files.
It should be noted that Lables and Lists received a new contract, Number 100129002, for $48,750.00 which ends January, 2011 by the entire House of Representatives, Democrats and Republicans, for email addresses in file format.
Disclaimer: This post implies no misconduct on the part of Strongmail, Listrak, Ltd. nor Labels and Lists, Inc.
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