Police detained the Scottish National Party’s treasurer Tuesday in a party financial inquiry that previously nabbed its executive director, Nicola Sturgeon’s husband.
Two weeks after SNP’s former longstanding executive Peter Murrell was questioned for over 11 hours and released without charges, Colin Beattie, 71, was detained.
Police returned to Murrell and Sturgeon’s Glasgow home the next day to look for evidence.
Scottish police are examining how a Scottish independence campaign spent 600,000 pounds ($745,000).
Scotland police detained the Scottish National Party treasurer in a party financing inquiry.
Strurgeon resigned as party leader and first minister of Scotland’s semi-autonomous government earlier this year. She claimed it was time for her, her party, and her country to step aside.
On Easter weekend, Sturgeon told reporters that the past several days had been “obviously difficult, quite traumatic at times.” She promised to assist with authorities but hadn’t been questioned yet.
Murrell resigned March 18 after 20 years. In a year, the party’s membership dropped from over 100,000 to just over 70,000. He apologized but denied misrepresenting.
After Murrell’s arrest, party auditors resigned.
Midlothian North and Musselburgh MSP Beattie also serves.
George Santos, a Republican from New York, teamed up with Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Irving, to solicit contributions during his successful campaign for Congress last year.
According to a report filed by Santos campaign treasurer Nancy Marks, who also managed finances for the Santos-Van Duyne collaboration, they raised a modest $11,600 collectively.
According to an aide, Van Duyne never declared any profits from the joint venture because no money reached her.
This raises the issue of whether Santos defrauded his Texas colleague. Where did the money go?
Chris Homan, a spokesman for the Van Duyne campaign, told The Dallas Morning News that the JFC was established for a single voyage to New York.
“The JFC has not been used since that trip, and it will not be used in the future,” Homan stated. “With regard to donations, the Beth Van Duyne campaign did not receive a distribution of funds following the New York trip.”
“Any further questions should be directed to Santos’s organization,” he stated.
Director of congressional communications for Santos, Naysa Woomer, stated she was unable to answer queries regarding campaign matters. Marks and Joe Murray, the attorney for Santos, did not respond to requests for comment.
The victory of Santos reversed a House seat and helped Republicans secure a narrow majority, but he was soon engulfed in scandal. His employment history, education, and other biographical details were revealed to be fraudulent.
These misrepresentations of his credentials and heritage caused enormous political repercussions for him and his Republican colleagues. A House ethics investigation is currently ongoing, and legislators from both parties hope that it will result in his expulsion.
Although these are political issues, improperly managing or reporting campaign finances may also have legal repercussions.
According to the Washington Post, the Justice Department urged the Federal Elections Commission to delay any enforcement action against Santos at the end of January, signifying a financial investigation by law enforcement.
According to Politico, Santos reported donations from his own campaign account to fellow Republicans for which the purported recipients have no record.
The collaborative endeavor with Van Duyne falls within the same category.
On July 28, 2022, the “Devolder Santos Van Duyne Victory Committee” (his full name is George Anthony Devolder Santos) was formed.
Later, on August 15, the joint committee reported two contributions of $5,800 each from New York residents Josh Eisen and Virginia Knott.
At the time, the federal limit per donor per election cycle was $2,900. Primary and general elections are tallied independently. Eisen and Knott each contributed the utmost permitted for 2022 — or possibly more — to Santos’ campaign.
Prosecutors told a court on Monday that two accused Chinese spies paid a Sydney businessman envelopes of cash for information regarding a government arrangement with the US and Britain to build a fleet of Australian nuclear-powered submarines.
Alexander Csergo, a businessman charged with reckless foreign interference in Sydney’s Downing Center Local Court, was denied bail by a video connection from prison.
The 2018 legislation prohibiting covert foreign involvement and espionage that incensed China included the 15-year charge.
He is accused of accepting money from two suspected Chinese spies, Ken and Evelyn, for handwritten reports on Australian defense, economic, and national security arrangements since 2021 while working in Shanghai, where he owns a communications and technology infrastructure consultancy.
Prosecutor Connor McCraith said the topics included the September 2021 AUKUS cooperation between Australia, the UK, and the US to build an Australian submarine fleet fuelled by U.S. nuclear technology.
In March, U.S. President Joe Biden and Australian and Britain leaders agreed that Australia will acquire secondhand Virginia-class submarines from the US and develop a new AUKUS class with Britain.
The suspected spies also requested information regarding Australia’s Quadrilateral Security Dialogue with the US, Japan, and India and lithium and iron ore mining in Australia, according to the prosecutors.
Since his Friday arrest at his Bondi home, Csergo has remained in jail. Police and ASIO operatives had questioned him for weeks.
McCraith claimed Csergo revealed early in the interrogation that he thought Ken and Evylen were spies after meeting them but keep in touch with them for two years.
“He clearly has links to the Chinese state and two people he clearly thinks work for the MSS,” McCraith told the court. He stated he returned to Australia with a shopping list of needed information.
McCraith said a normal individual would have notified Australian authorities immediately after being contacted.
McCraith claimed Csergo kept in touch with the accused spy, inviting him to Australia.
Bernard Collaery, Csergo’s lawyer, claimed his client was a successful businessman who had developed working contacts in China.
“Businesspeople like our client know all roads lead to the state, whether it be the state economic intelligence agency” or the Ministry of State Security, Collaery stated.
“Cash payments for consulting reports might have a color to it in Australia but might be the way it’s done in China — it’s not necessarily sinister,” Collaery said.
Collaery claimed the stories were based on public records and Csergo’s creativity, not spying.
Magistrate Michael Barko called Csergo a “very well-educated, sophisticated, worldly businessperson” who deserved the presumption of innocence.
Barko said Csergo faced a strong prosecution case with multiple important confessions.
According to prosecution records, Csergo told ASIO agents he met Ken and Evelyn at deserted Shanghai cafés he assumed had been approved for him.
The records suggest Csergo felt Ken and Evelyn were his “handlers” from China’s espionage agency.
“I don’t know what they do in China, but in this country, if I were to read those facts to any layperson, they would be highly suspicious of the defendant’s conduct, at the very least,” Barko said.
June is Csergo’s court date.
Collaery told reporters outside the court that the Law Council of Australia, the main legal body in Australia, has long cautioned that the foreign influence provisions were overly wide.
“If you work as a consultant in any foreign country, and you are any person, whether you’re a private contractor or a government official, and you undertake consulting work that may relate to Australia’s foreign influences or national security such as articles on the supply of lithium, iron ore, you, according to this legislation… can be guilty of foreign influence,” Collaery said.
“This is an absolute civil liberties issue,” Collaery remarked. China is its subgroup. New South Wales is hearing foreign animosity.”
At the introduction of his main initiative, launched in January, the prime minister admitted.
To ensure that all English students study math without making it mandatory, a new review will be initiated.
It comes a week before teachers strike again on 27 April and 2 May in the continuing salary and working conditions conflict with the administration.
Mathematicians, educators, and businesspeople will advise the government.
The education industry has supported Mr. Sunak’s decision, but opponents say more professional instructors and funds are needed to implement the idea.
Mr. Sunak said that STEM graduates receive tax-free subsidies for teacher training, but “We need already, and we will need more maths teachers.”
Mr. Sunak said the “cultural sense that it’s okay to be bad at maths” puts youngsters “at a disadvantage” by not giving them employment skills.
Change this anti-maths attitude. Mr. Sunak informed business executives, students, and instructors that numeracy is as important as reading.
“I won’t let this cultural sense that it’s okay to be bad at maths disadvantage our children.”
“My maths campaign is not a nice-to-have. It’s about revaluing math in America.”
“We simply cannot allow poor numeracy to cost our economy tens of billions a year or leave people twice as likely to be unemployed as those with competent numeracy,” he said.
“We must fundamentally change our education system to give our young people and businesses the knowledge and skills they need to compete with the best in the world.”
A six-year-old government evaluation of post-16 mathematics made several suggestions that have not been implemented.
Sir Adrian Smith, the review’s author, was urged to consider encouraging children to study math until 18 but declined owing to worries about education system resources.
The UK is one of the few OECD countries that does not require kids to study arithmetic till 18.
According to Downing Street, a third of youngsters fail GCSE maths, and over eight million people have numeracy abilities below those of a nine-year-old.
Mr. Sunak told Sky News’ Beth Rigby, “We’re doing both.”
He said the government was starting at elementary schools with mathematical centres to share best practices and improve curriculum.
We’ve progressed. “We’ve gained 10 points in international rankings,” he remarked. We must do more.
He disagreed that past administrations had “dropped the ball” on mathematical standards, stating, “Our track record on this stuff is great.”
He conceded that the adjustments wouldn’t happen “overnight” and that the government will reveal its “maths to 18” strategy after July.
“Once again, the prime minister needs to show his working: he cannot deliver this reheated, empty pledge without more maths teachers,” Labour’s shadow education secretary Bridget Phillipson said before Mr. Sunak’s address.
“But after 13 years of failing our students, the Tory administration routinely fails its target for new maths teachers, with mathematical attainment disparities rising and teachers quitting in droves.
Labour does not need a new advisory group to make good decisions for our kids. By abolishing private school tax benefits and hiring thousands more teachers, particularly math instructors, we will raise standards nationwide.”
A proposed bill would prevent Indiana state and local governments from requiring or disclosing nonprofit donor data.
It safeguards donor privacy, which can help secure gifts, lawmakers and charitable groups say. Transparency organizations believe it might hide huge contributors’ political and other influence.
Business leagues, agricultural cooperatives, social clubs, political groups, and churches can all become tax-exempt nonprofits.
House Bill 1212 would prohibit all Hoosier governments from requiring organizations to provide “personal information”—data identifying nonprofit members, supporters, volunteers, and funders. It would also forbid disclosure.
It would also prohibit federal agencies from seeking or forcing contractors or grantees to name NGOs they’ve supported financially.
The measure protects sensitive information from public records demands. However, existing campaign money and lobbying registrations top a long list of exclusions.
The bill’s Senate sponsor, Sen. Liz Brown, R-Fort Wayne, told the Capital Chronicle, “If we want to make changes, that’s a legislative decision.” To prevent an agency from making those judgments.
Facilitating donations
Nonprofit advocates aim to reassure donors by promising anonymity.
“Speaking with our members, it’s clear that donor privacy is one of the basic things that they’re asked when consulting with donors,” said Indiana Philanthropy Alliance president and CEO Claudia Cummings.
The bill’s main proponent represents several charity foundations. Political action is prohibited for 501(c)3 organizations.
Cummings suggested contributors seek anonymity for privacy or humility. They may wish to avoid harassment, retribution, or solicitation.
“Donors get to choose how they spend their money—these are their private dollars,” she said. They can save, spend, or give it. What if those donors stopped funding the social sector?
Cummings and other House Bill 1212 proponents want to make anti-disclosure state law.
Some states have passed contributor disclosure legislation notwithstanding the U.S. Supreme Court’s repeated First Amendment rulings.
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Alabama dates back to Jim Crow. The supreme court found that disclosing the civil rights organization’s members would expose them to retaliation.
In 2021, the justices decided Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta, a case involving conservative advocacy groups and a California law requiring top donor disclosure. Another split court overturned that statute.
To know
Some fear Indiana’s law will diminish openness since it includes charities like 501(c)4 Americans for Prosperity that can engage in politics.
“These kinds of bills… make it harder to get information about who is trying to influence our government officials or our elected officials,” said Aaron McKean, legal counsel for pro-transparency group Campaign Legal Center. “And that’s information that voters need to assess whether the government is actually working on their behalf or if government is working for those wealthy special interests who are lining their pockets.”
McKean said such laws might let elected officials conceal donor or politically active nonprofit conflicts of interest.
“When you get involved in politics, you step into the public sphere,” said Pete Quist, deputy research director at OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan group that analyzes campaign spending and lobbying.”… The public should know who funds politicians. That outweighs donor privacy for us.”
Bill sponsor Brown cited Planned Parenthood and anti-abortion pregnancy resource centers as examples of her belief in privacy regardless of political party.
“Whether they’re 501(c)3 or 501(c)4, I think that’s a protection that we all seem to agree is important, and I think we should continue that,” Brown said. “I hope—I didn’t feel we were doing this just for political advocacy protection.”
“I think we’re doing it because I’ve donated in my area. “I’ve raised money for Boys and Girls Clubs and other organizations,” she said. I can tell you that people occasionally want to contribute anonymously.
Many exceptions
The bill isn’t arbitrary. Instead, it balances extensive donor and charity protections with a 12-part exclusions list.
Campaign financing and lobbying disclosure rules are first.
Warrants, discovery requests, court evidence, voluntary release to an agency, other secretary of state reports, State Board of Accounts examinations, attorney general investigation requests, payment-related state auditor efforts, licensing, and hospitals follow.
Many exceptions are conditional.
McKean said he hadn’t examined Indiana’s plan, but comparable bills in other states had “little tweaks” that “riddled” the law with exclusions.
McKean added, “It’s not clear why you’d push so hard for a bill that is going to end up being riddled with all these exceptions, especially when you don’t need it.
Mixed reviews nationally
New Hampshire and Virginia passed identical laws. More tried.
Missouri lawmakers are adding exemptions. Republican Gov. Mike Parson’s administration and the state’s budget, contracts, and public safety agencies say the bipartisan law hinders their operations.
The Missouri Independent stated that Parson’s administration has denied public records requests citing the statute.
In 2021 and 2018, North Carolina Democrat Gov. Roy Cooper and Michigan Republican former Gov. Rick Snyder vetoed comparable plans.
Senate Senators sent Indiana’s House Bill 1212 to conference committee. They’ll reconcile before forwarding it to Gov. Eric Holcomb.
Another Brown-authored nonprofit measure awaits his signature. Senate Bill 302 prohibits state agencies and officials from imposing tougher nonprofit registration and reporting requirements than state or federal law.
This month, New York Times columnist Ezra Klein slammed “everything-bagel liberalism.” He claimed that progressives often compromise their housing, decarbonization, and technology policy goals by adding laws, mandates, and requirements for other social and economic goals.
The result? They raise expenses and undercut their main purpose of improving output in those areas by utilizing industrial-policy laws to achieve all their goals.
Progressive wish-list elements like child care regulations and equity methods are destroying the semiconductor sector CHIPS Act finance.
Businesses requesting funds must promise not to buy back shares, write “facility workforce plans,” and explain how they will utilize pricey union workers for construction. Delays and higher expenses result.
Progressives’ ignorance about government-led industrial rebirth is alarming.
Conservatives across are furious. American Compass industrial policy advocate Oren Cass says everything-bagel liberalism “co-opts bipartisan action on national priorities for unpopular progressive ends, at which point conservatives will rightly refuse to create any programs at all.” Progressives poison bipartisan industrial policy by utilizing legislation for political objectives.
National conservatism is foolish. Public-choice analysts have warned against state engagement in emerging economic sectors. Pork-barrel politics, presidential power, and legislative language abuse usually follow. Cass and colleagues minimized these worries as libertarians who let the ideal become the enemy of the good, reflexively opposing governmental authority for factory recovery.
This bipartisan backing for industrial policy is starting, and Cass’s objectives are riskier than he thought. First, no “national priority” has lasting bipartisan backing. National conservatives and progressives have different “national priorities.”
National conservatives value pro-manufacturing, Big Tech regulation, and labor union regulations. Progressives? They appreciate part of it, but their early Build Back Better plan’s push for child-care subsidies and child tax credits shows they emphasize a bigger social state.
A worrying naivete about progressives may be seen in the hopes for a government-sparked economic renaissance.
Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that progressives are eager to hijack national conservative policy agendas for their own ends. Cass and industrial-policy proponents like Robert Atkinson of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation seem surprised. Last Thursday, the latter tweeted that most of what we saw was “not industrial policy” but “left-wing green equity industrial policy.” Industrial policy may never be adopted, like collectivism.
Second, normal industrial policy plans usually fail to owe to the dominance of political concerns in the development of laws and distribution of financing. Do our governments consider benefit-cost ratios and select projects with the highest ROI when proposing infrastructure measures? No. The California high-speed rail drama shows that political ties win and party obsessions grow.
The railway, sanctioned in 2008 to connect Los Angeles and San Francisco and projected to be finished by 2020, has been moved to a less efficient route connecting “affordable housing” neighborhoods to offer “needed jobs.” At this pace, the project won’t finish this century. Why are national conservatives surprised that politics-based industrial policy is following suit?
Of course, it’s not simply the legislative process, but in a Congress with tiny majorities and strong polarization, passing anything requires “wins” for varied coalitions. After legislation is passed, vague wording permits administrators and lobbyists to make rules and regulations, which they will. Industrial policy to “create” manufacturing employment gets social-policy adds from Democrats, while Big Tech regulation to avoid “censorship” risks “hate speech” crackdowns by a Federal Trade Commission head like Lina Khan.
National conservatives know this. Last October, economist Bryan Caplan reminded them that Democrats will manage the federal government for half the time and progressive federal employees will run the programs full-time. Add lobbyists and bureaucratic shenanigans, and new government tasks have always been riskier than national conservatives accept.
Hopes for an industrial rebirth that is ignited by the government reveal a worrying naivete about progressives.
Calling progressives disingenuous is a cop-out. Last year, Jason Furman, former head of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, said many progressives don’t understand trade-offs. Minimum wage hikes benefit everyone, decarbonization creates green jobs and minimal carbon emissions, etc. Some government officials believe that child-care standards will reduce semiconductor sector labor shortages, boost output, and help families.
However, if progressives suffer from skewed reasoning, then national conservatives suffer from forgetfulness. They’ve forgotten what conservatives previously knew: that deviating from restricting the state’s role to clear and unmistakable needs gives your opponents the ability to do foolishness.
Cass has argued that public-choice concerns are always present, thus growing government will not worsen them. He now concedes that his industrial strategy would create many progressive requirements, which traditional conservatives hate. In reality, the hopeful picture of a government-driven bipartisan economic rebirth rests on the premise that Democrats will relinquish their goal while an ongoing agreement prevails.
National conservative policy is based on a nonexistent reality. Since Democrats are providing “everything-bagel liberalism,” we must eat industrial policy’s not-so-hidden elements.
The United States no longer has two parties committed to democratic self-government.
Despite a few conspicuous exceptions, such as what the Democratic National Committee did to Bernie Sanders in 2016, the Democratic Party is still primarily committed to democracy.
And we have a Republican Party careening toward authoritarianism at maximum speed. OK, authoritarianism.
Last week’s events in Nashville are a worrisome reminder of the fragility of American democracy when Republicans obtain supermajorities and are no longer required to collaborate with Democratic legislators.
The seats of the two Tennessee Democrats whom Republicans expelled from the Tennessee House have been restored pending the holding of special elections, but the damage to democracy cannot be readily repaired.
Trump has pushed win-at-all-cost politics, which is reaching its natural conclusion.
They were neither accused of criminal wrongdoing nor immoral behavior. Their alleged crime was protesting Tennessee’s failure to implement stricter gun control after a shooting at a Nashville Christian school that left three pupils and three adults dead.
Technically, they were in violation of the house rules, but the state legislature had never imposed such a severe penalty for rule violations. Several Tennessee legislators have maintained their positions despite being charged with significant sexual misconduct in recent years. Moreover, the two legislators who were expelled last week are African-American, whereas a third lawmaker who demonstrated in the same way but was not expelled is Caucasian.
We are witnessing the logical conclusion of win-at-all-costs Trump Republican politics – Republicans’ use of scorched-earth tactics to entrench their power for no reason other than the fact that they can.
Democracy is concerned with means. Under it, citizens are not required to concur on ends (abortion, healthcare, firearms, or whatever else we disagree about) so long as we agree on democratic means of resolving our disagreements.
For Trump Republicans, however, the ends justify any means, including expelling lawmakers, manipulating elections through gerrymandering, refusing to raise the debt ceiling, and denying the outcome of a legitimate presidential election.
Wisconsin may shortly provide a more disturbing example. While liberals celebrated the election of Janet Protasiewicz to the Wisconsin supreme court on Tuesday because she will tilt the court against the state’s extreme gerrymandering (the most extreme in the country) and its stringent abortion laws (among the strictest in the United States), something else occurred in Wisconsin on election day that could very well negate Protasiewicz’s victory.
By a narrow margin, voters in Wisconsin’s eighth senatorial district elected Republican Dan Knodl to the state senate. This provides the Wisconsin Republican party with a supermajority and the ability to impeach critical state officials, including justices.
Knodl stated several weeks ago that he would “certainly consider” impeaching Protasiewicz. Although he was discussing her function as a county judge at the time, his interest in impeaching her has likely increased now that she can influence the state’s highest court.
Like Tennessee, this may be done without public justification. Republican authoritarianism justifies power.
Recall that in 2018, in response to the election of a Democratic governor and attorney general in Wisconsin, the Republican legislature and the outgoing Republican governor substantially reduced the authority of both offices.
Meanwhile, a newly installed Republican supermajority in Florida has given Ron DeSantis unbridled control – with total authority over the board governing Disney, the theme park giant he has battled over his anti-LGBTQ “don’t say gay” law; permission to fly migrants from anywhere in the United States to destinations of his own choosing, for political purposes, and then send the bill to Florida’s taxpayers; and unprecedented prosecutorial power in the form of his newly created, hand-penned
Without two democratically committed parties to resolve divergent objectives, the democratically committed party is at a tactical disadvantage. If it is to endure, it must eventually sacrifice democratic means for its own purposes.
Under these conditions, partisanship becomes animosity and political divisions become hostility. There are no principles in warfare, only victories and defeats. This occurred 160 years ago, when the American Civil War tore the nation apart.
Donald Trump is not solely responsible for this dangerous trend, but he has legitimized and encouraged the ends-justify-the-means viciousness that is currently propelling the Republican Party to become the American fascist party.
Former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich teaches public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His latest book, The System: Who Rigged It and How We Can Fix It, is now available. He is a columnist for Guardian US.
A shadow minister has warned that the presence of predators in Westminster has made the Commons “the most unprofessional workplace” he has ever encountered.
Luke Pollard, an MP, stated that abuse in the core of politics is being ignored to the detriment of victims.
The shadow minister for the armed forces also criticized the behavior of MPs in the lower chamber, which he described as a “bear pit” where individuals are “deliberately shouted down.”
Westminster has been rocked by parliamentary abuse scandals in recent months.
Mr. Pollard, who recently announced he would be temporarily withdrawing from politics after being diagnosed with skin cancer, told GB News, “I do not believe Westminster is a safe place to work, especially for many of the young staff members employed by MPs.”
“We are aware that there are predators in the Westminster area who are sometimes tolerated or ignored, and I want to see that rectified.
“Westminster should represent the finest of our nation. It should be a position that people aspire to attain in order to alter the world from a position of power. And I’m afraid I sometimes feel that Westminster is failing the rest of the country.”
I think we’ve failed too many victims due to our weak system. No culture challenges it.
“I believe the Commons to be the least professional workplace in which I have ever labored. Over many decades, the Chamber has been permitted to deteriorate into a bear pit where people are intentionally shouted down and insulted, and this is what passes for mature political debates. Our policies are defective in general.”
Mr. Pollard, who is openly homosexual, also described the hostility he has encountered outside of Westminster as a politician.
The office of his constituents has been vandalized twice, including once with offensive graffiti.
On Valentine’s Day, he also received harassment after posting a photo of himself and his companion on social media.
Mr. Pollard told the news outlet, “I believe when you’re confronted with hatred – and there’s a lot of hatred in politics and our society as a whole right now – you have the option of responding with more hatred, more fury, more division, or more energy. However, this only produces more heat and no additional illumination.”
Elisabeth Kopp, who was the first woman to hold the position of a Swiss government minister, passed away on Friday at the age of 86, according to an announcement made by the Swiss government.
Kopp was elected to Switzerland’s seven-member Federal Council on October 2, 1984. Switzerland was one of the last nations in Europe to allow women to vote in national elections, therefore it was one of the first countries in the world to do so.
In January 1989, the “Kopp affair,” one of Switzerland’s worst political scandals, forced her to quit as minister of justice and police.
According to the official statement from the government, Kopp passed away on April 7 “after a long illness.”
“The Federal Council has learned with great sadness of the death of Elisabeth Kopp at the age of 86,” it stated in the statement after her passing was announced.
She made a significant contribution to the advancement of women’s rights and was the first woman to hold a seat in the Swiss government.
It was stated that her election to the Federal Council was “An important date… in the evolution of the status of women in Switzerland– 13 years after the introduction of women’s suffrage.” Her election was “An important date…” in the evolution of the status of women in Switzerland.
After the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, Kopp, who was originally from the canton of Zurich, moved to the city to study law. After the revolution in Hungary, she became dedicated to promoting democracy and human rights.
She was also an advocate for equal rights and the conservation of the environment.
Kopp entered the political arena at the age of 34, serving as a local councillor in the municipality of Zumikon, which is located outside of Zurich.
She was elected to the National Council, the lower chamber of parliament, in 1979 when she was a member of the Free Democratic Party, which is located to the center-right of the political spectrum.
In 1984, before being elected to a position in the administration by parliamentarians, she was elected to the position of deputy leader of the FDP.
She was forced to retire in 1989 after coming under severe fire from the media for having telephoned her husband to persuade him to stand down immediately as vice-president of Shakarchi Trading — after becoming aware of its suspected participation in money laundering. She had called her husband after receiving wind of the company’s alleged involvement in money laundering.
Her actions caused a public uproar to ensue.
Kopp has consistently denied any wrongdoing, whether it be moral or legal.
She was suspected of breaking official secrecy laws, but the Federal Court in 1990 found that there was insufficient evidence to convict her of the crime.
The event served as the basis for a number of novels and a film about a detective.
She first withdrew from public life, but she eventually emerged to voice her opinion on matters that were near and dear to her, including the promotion of women’s participation in political life.
In 1993, Ruth Dreifuss became the second woman to hold the position of government minister. In 1999, she was elected as Switzerland’s first ever female president. In 2010, for the first time ever, a majority of the seven seats in the Federal Council were held by women.
There are currently three females serving in ministerial positions in the government.
On Friday, Justice Minister Elisabeth Baume-Schneider referred to Kopp as “a pioneer for women in politics” in her remarks.
Monday’s campaign finance filings from Hartford’s Democratic mayoral contenders painted a bleak picture of Connecticut politics.
Fundraising shows candidates may last till the September primary. That primary determines the mayor. In 1969, 100-year-old Ann Uccello won a second term as mayor. No Republican has come close since.
State Sen. John Fonfara raised $325,000 in the first quarter. As predicted, lobbyists and wives gave Fonfara $1,000 maximum donations. State law bars politicians from collecting lobbyist campaign contributions during the legislative session. The law applies solely to state campaigns, not local ones.
Kevin Rennie: A bleak look at Connecticut politics as it really is
The legislature’s finance committee co-chair, Fonfara, took advantage. Twelve Senate Democrats sponsored Fonfara’s March 16 fundraiser. Command performance. Lobbyists understood: Donate when before the Senate. They did.
Two former Republican senators maxed out for Fonfara. After the 2016 election, Scott Frantz of Greenwich and Len Fasano of North Haven collaborated with Fonfara in the equally divided Senate. They reached a budget deal to fix the state’s finances. The prickly Fonfara praises Fasano for his involvement in the 2017 parliamentary resolution.
Fonfara served Hartford in the House and Senate for almost 40 years. Fonfara will need every dollar he can earn to counter the local party organization if he loses the Democratic town committee support in July.
Between January and March 2018 state treasurer candidate Arunan Arulampalam raised $225,000. Arulampalam wants to run as “I am the future” to succeed Luke Bronin, who is not running again.
Arulampalam’s campaign finance report carried painful memories. William Tomasso, convicted in a bid-rigging scheme that federal prosecutors said turned former Gov. John Rowland’s administration into a criminal operation, gave him the maximum donation. It cost Connecticut residents tens of millions of dollars.
Anthony Ravosa gave ex-lobbyist Arulampalam $1,000. He is a political operative who recruited money for Rowland in 2002 and introduced him to Enron executives months before a quasi-public trash-to-energy agency made a disastrous contract with the corrupt Texas energy business that collapsed in 2001.
Since last autumn, retired judge Eric Coleman has raised $110,000. Coleman lists little lobbyist donations. Councilman Nick Lebron raised $57,000.
In this quiet campaign, candidates have shown their executive leadership skills in a Metropolitan District Commission legal fee dispute. Legal expenses have stalled the regional water authority’s governing commission.
Last year, the commission’s audit committee investigated the agency’s legal fees. Former state Sen. and MDC chairman William DiBella initially refused to participate with the probe’s law firm. DiBella’s three-hour answers were rambling. DiBella ultimately agreed to another interview.
The independent assessment shows that DiBella violated MDC rules to identify and represent his buddy James Sandler.
DiBella’s disrespect for his agency’s probe is worse. Last year, DiBella withdrew. He led the Monday meeting and blocked report debate. Hartford commission members supported Old Saybrook resident DiBella, who claims residence in his son’s Hartford house.
Each mayor candidate should explain how he would utilize his power to break the DiBella bloc and allow new MDC leadership.
Any candidate that condones MDC anti-democratic tactics will hurt Hartford more.
