{"id":11521,"date":"2018-07-16T12:00:13","date_gmt":"2018-07-16T16:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=11521"},"modified":"2019-05-29T04:28:05","modified_gmt":"2019-05-29T08:28:05","slug":"is-ficker-using-public-financing-to-promote-his-law-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=11521","title":{"rendered":"Is Ficker Using Public Financing to Promote His Law Practice?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

County Executive candidate Robin Ficker is enrolled in the county\u2019s public financing program and has announced that he has qualified for $231,185 in public matching funds<\/a>.\u00a0 Those funds are supposed to be used to finance his campaign for office.\u00a0 But his Facebook ads raise the question of whether he is also using them to promote his law practice.<\/p>\n

Ficker has run at least three political Facebook ads from his Robin Ficker Law Offices page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"hair<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The content of the ads is unquestionably political.\u00a0 But the Facebook page is a mixed bag.\u00a0 It advertises his services as a criminal defense lawyer and has his business phone number.\u00a0 It also offers a combination of political content and promotion of Ficker\u2019s legal work.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/a> \"prom<\/a><\/p>\n

To be fair, Ficker\u2019s ads do not advertise the legal posts.\u00a0\u00a0 But whenever a voter sees one of his political ads, they see \u201cRobin Ficker Law Offices\u201d at the top.<\/p>\n

Maryland COMAR 33.13.10.03<\/a> prohibits the use of campaign funds for \u201cthe personal use or the personal benefit of a candidate.\u201d\u00a0 Montgomery County COMCOR 16.21.01.05<\/a> prohibits the use of public financing funds for \u201cpersonal use.\u201d\u00a0 Whether Ficker is running afoul of these regulations is a matter for the authorities.\u00a0 But if he wants to avoid this issue entirely, Ficker should establish a political Facebook page that is separate from his business.\u00a0 That\u2019s what other candidates do and Ficker should do the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. County Executive candidate Robin Ficker is enrolled in the county\u2019s public financing program and has announced that he has qualified for $231,185 in public matching funds.\u00a0 Those funds are supposed to be used to finance his campaign for office.\u00a0 But his Facebook ads raise the question of whether he is also using … Continue reading Is Ficker Using Public Financing to Promote His Law Practice?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,138,492,284,286],"tags":[1545,1541,1201,1908,1596],"class_list":["post-11521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-campaign-finance","category-county-executive","category-facebook","category-robin-ficker","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-campaign-finance","tag-facebook","tag-public-campaign-financing","tag-robin-ficker"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2ZP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11521"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11521\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12118,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11521\/revisions\/12118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}