Is PCE the Utah chapter of ACM?

Last night, after deciding that I had as good an understanding as I could get of the Wisconsin case, I looked for a minute at the All Children Matter-WI's record at the Elections Board's website and it occurred to me that ACM had likely set up state committees in several of the places where it has been active. I spent another couple of hours googling to test the theory and came to a few interesting findings.

At the Virginia State Board of Elections website (http://www.sbe.virginia.gov/cms/Campaign_Finance_Disclosure/View_Disclosure_Reports/CF_Reports_Report_Codes.asp?SUWVVal=CommitteeActiveView&RepYearVal=2006&tCNVal=&tCCVal=&tCSVal=&tCZVal=&tCOVal=&tCBDVal=&tCEDVal=&tCAFVal=&tCATVal=&tCCSOptVal=EqualTo&OffVal=&PtyVal=&CommVal=981246), I found a political action committee called "All Children Matter-Virginia," and you can search the records there to find who contributed to it and who received disbursements from it.

At the Arizona Secretary of State's website here (http://www.azsos.gov/scripts/cfs_committee.dll/CommitteeSearch), you can find "All Children Matter-Arizona," formed on August 21, 2006, with Greg Brock of Michigan listed as its chairman and Lisa Lisker of Virginia as its treasurer. In fact, the legal address for ACM-AZ isn't in Arizona at all; it's in Alexandria, Virginia. When I clicked through its filings for 2006, I found a $2,000 contribution made on September 14, 2006, by a "Doug Holmes." I don't know if it's the same Doug Holmes that is a co-founder of Parents for Choice in Education, but it's a strange coincidence if it isn't.

At the Florida Division of Elections website here (http://election.dos.state.fl.us/online/commsrch.asp), I found "All Children Matter-Florida" AND "All Children Matter-Virginia." Apparently both committees are registered to do business in Florida. (Does that mean ACM can double its contributions into that state?) ACM-FL's chairman, treasurer and registered agent are all one person, John Kirtley of Tampa. On Florida's website, though, ACM-VA's legal address is in Tallahassee, and its chairman, treasurer and registered agent are all the same person again, but this time it's Brecht Heuchan of Tallahassee. I looked at the committees' ledger pages for 2006 about counted up about $7 million in contributions to the two, but I also noticed that almost (if not) all of ACM-FL's contributions come directly from the ACM-VA entity located in Florida.

At the Indiana Elections Division website here (http://www.indianacampaignfinance.com/inpublic/Reporting/CommitteeDetail.aspx?FileNumber=5208), I found "All Children Matter-Indiana," whose chairman is John Mutz of Indianapolis but whose treasurer is attorney John Bopp of Bopp, Coleson and Bostrom of Terre Haute, who is also the attorney for the Milwaukee-based Alliance for Choice in Education.

At the Missouri Ethics Commission's website here (http://www.mec.mo.gov/Ethics/CampaignFinance/CFCommitteeInfo1.aspx?MECID=C041446&Year=2007), I found All Children Matter-Missouri, whose treasurer is Jean Paul Bradshaw of Kansas City.

At the Ohio Secretary of State's website here (http://www1.sos.state.oh.us/pls/portal/PORTAL_CF.CF_QRY_PAC_COVERPAGE1.show?p_arg_names=year&p_arg_values=2006&p_arg_names=report_type&p_arg_values=200&p_arg_names=report_key&p_arg_values=87673), I found "All Children Matter-Ohio," whose treasurer is listed as Lisa Lisker, the same person who is treasurer for ACM-AZ. This time, however, her address is listed in Columbus, Ohio.

And back at the Wisconsin State Elections Board's website here (http://elections.state.wi.us/financereport_pac_all.asp), I found "All Children Matter-WI," whose treasurer is listed as, again, Lisa Lisker. This time, however, the committee's legal address is Lisker's address in Alexandria, Virginia.

But after reading the articles I've collected the past couple of weeks, I was surprised not to find an "All Children Matter" committee in South Carolina, where ACM spent a lot of money in 2004, or in Texas, where complaints have been filed, or right here in Utah. It appears that in some states, ACM has chosen not to create a committee under its own name, but to create or fund a committee with a different name.

Is PCE our ACM-UT?