A MESSAGE FROM MARIE SORMAN, PRESIDENT OF OPERATION CLEAN GOVERNMENT:
NEED TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT
Operation Clean Government takes issue with a statement in the Providence Journal, September 9 in the article "Mollis, Raptakis in spirited battle" by Lynn Arditi. The paragraph quoted below is possibly the result of a story in January 2009 (almost 2 years ago), where Katherine Gregg quoted a former President of OCG who was not on the board at that time. It was not an official statement from OCG.
" ...But more recently, Common Cause and another citizen advocacy group, Operation Clean Government, have questioned whether Mollis and his legal advisers have taken a more lax role with respect to enforcing financial disclosure requirements. The Providence Journal reported in 2009 that even some of the known relationships between lawmakers and Smith Hill lobbyists continued to go unreported on disclosure forms..."
OCG was not called for a statement for this article. We have checked with Secretary Mollis' office and find that the compliance rate for 2009 reports due in January 2010 is very high.
- Lobbyists: 7 delinquent out of 475 - 98% compliance
- Entities: (corporations and trade organizations): 9 delinquent out of 395 - 98% compliance
- Lobby Firms: 1 delinquent out of 35 - 97%
The high rate of compliance is due to these notices to lobbyists from the Secretary of State's office.
OCG is a non-partisan group promoting honest, responsible and responsive state government. We do not endorse candidates. We are troubled to be quoted incorrectly in an article about candidates in a race for any office.
