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Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith did not return over $50,000 in corporate donations

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Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith did not return over $50,000 in corporate donations following scandal-plagued campaign

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Mississippi Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R).

12/31/18
Despite calls for refunds, new campaign filings show Mississippi Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith kept $50,000 in donations from major companies like Walmart and Facebook in the wake of her controversial special election victory in November. The latest Federal Election Commission filing -- released amid the government shutdown at the end of last week -- showed that Republican Hyde-Smith did not issue refunds to most of the corporate donors who asked for their campaign contributions to be returned in November in the wake of her “public hanging” comment. Hyde-Smith, who was locked in a contentious battle to hold onto her Senate seat against Democrat Mike Espy, faced fierce blowback over a racially tinged joke about "public hangings" that became public after a video taken by a political tracker following her campaign was posted on Twitter. "If he invited me to a public hanging, I'd be on the front row," Hyde-Smith said in the video, referring to a rancher who supported her campaign.

A host of companies, including several of the country’s most high profile, denounced Hyde-Smith’s comments and publicly demanded refunds. Among them were Aetna, Amgen, AT&T, Boston Scientific, Facebook, Google, Leidos, Major League Baseball, Pfizer, Union Pacific and Walmart. The New York Times reported earlier this month that MLB received a refund, but in fact, MLB, along with Amgen, only received their donations back because the transactions were cancelled before being processed, according to the FEC filing. The Jackson Free Press reported that the refunds totaled more than $50,000 and the campaign’s refusal to issue the refunds is likely due to the fact that Hyde-Smith only had $63,744.51 cash on hand at the end of her campaign. Hyde-Smith did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News. Candidates are not legally required to fulfill refund requests.

Quite a piece of work. But hardly surprising for a Mississippi Republican.
 
"And did I mention female liberals are witches? You know what we gotta do with witches!"


Uh, ma'am, your political career is over, please step aside. And remember, there were no guarantees.
 
You cannot demand a donation back. Maybe it can be returned, but there is nothing wrong or immoral about keeping what someone else freely and voluntarily gave you.
 
You cannot demand a donation back. Maybe it can be returned, but there is nothing wrong or immoral about keeping what someone else freely and voluntarily gave you.

"I don't care what I said about lynchings, you ain't gettin' your donation back."

Hardly an ethical stance by a US Senator. But as I stated, about par for Mississippi.
 
"I don't care what I said about lynchings, you ain't gettin' your donation back."

Hardly an ethical stance by a US Senator. But as I stated, about par for Mississippi.

She never advocated for lynchings. She made an inadvisable comment about a public hanging. Much different then lynching. Lynching is a form of vigilante justice involving either removing someone from custody for unapproved punishment or punishment outside the courts for purposes of intimidation. Nothing in her comment expressed support for lynching, racially motivated or otherwise


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She made an inadvisable comment about a public hanging.

Well that's a novel euphemism. An inadvisable comment on public hanging. Except in Mississippi, that's antebellum code for lynching.
 
Well that's a novel euphemism. An inadvisable comment on public hanging. Except in Mississippi, that's antebellum code for lynching.

Is it? First off is “lynching” an antebellum thing? That became very common AFTER the civil war and reconstruction. And do you have an antebellum thesaurus listing this is an alternate meaning? I think a public hanging could just as easily refer to a white guy being executed. Hangings often were public and carried out in the county seat for actual crimes where a legitimate death sentence was imposed. I’ve never heard or read (and I ve read plenty of antebellum literature for a college course years ago) of a hanging being code for racial lynching.


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the last sentence on the OP's cite explains the reality:
Candidates are not legally required to fulfill refund requests.
 
Did the campaign promise to pay them back?

Is this a common practice and therefore failure to comply a faux pas?




She may be generally despicable, but ....eh
 
You cannot demand a donation back. Maybe it can be returned, but there is nothing wrong or immoral about keeping what someone else freely and voluntarily gave you.
There’s no legal requirement for Smith to return the $, but moral obligation is another thing. Then there’s the whole PR angle. Maybe bad for Smith, but that will fade quickly with so much else constantly happening in our Trump Bizzaro World. Besides, for those prominent people/organizations just getting their objections publicized is much more important than actually getting the money back.
 
There’s no legal requirement for Smith to return the $, but moral obligation is another thing. Then there’s the whole PR angle. Maybe bad for Smith, but that will fade quickly with so much else constantly happening in our Trump Bizzaro World. Besides, for those prominent people/organizations just getting their objections publicized is much more important than actually getting the money back.

the corporations win in both directions
1. in the giving of a legal bribe to a politician who may be in a position to help them
2. in giving the appearance they are appalled at the politician's actions and thus make a public request for a return of the contribution
 
There’s no legal requirement for Smith to return the $, but moral obligation is another thing.

Precisely. What does it say about a US Senator that refuses to return donations as requested by the donors?

What it says to me is that Smith is pretty sketchy. If she'll screw campaign donors out of $50,000, you can bet she will screw US taxpayers out of much much more.
 
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