Meet Jonathan Jenkins, who would apparently like to be on your ballot for the Senate this fall.
Jonathan Jenkins
It’s got a high-tech evangelist for a founder, $6 million in private equity investments, even its own crypto-currency.
No, it’s not a driverless car start-up or some new, life-changing app.
It’s the Indie Party — billed as a “movement” to end the “two-party duopoly” in the United States but built more like a political consulting and technology firm with profit in mind. Its first target — and at this point its only target — is the high-stakes U.S. Senate race featuring Republican Ted Cruz and Democrat Beto O’Rourke.
Its candidate and founder is a self-described “successful tech entrepreneur” and fluent Mandarin speaker named Jonathan Jenkins. The Euless native has been busily gathering the 47,000 or so signatures he needs to qualify for a spot as an independent on the November ballot alongside Cruz and O’Rourke.
[…]
Jenkins is the co-founder of company known as Order With Me (or just WithMe), which helps companies develop pop-up retail outlets. A graduate of Trinity-Euless High School and Abilene Christian College, Jenkins announced the launch of the Indie Party in March and said it had raised some $6.5 million in start-up capital within 72 hours.
Slick videos on the Indie Party website promote independent candidates as the solution to politics as usual, and the party offers a high-tech innovation: a crypto-currency called Indie Tokens that volunteers can earn and sell to donors, and that can be used to buy campaign merchandise or political services from vendors, lawyers and pollsters.
It’s “a party that is owned by you, the people, not by the politicians,” declares one of several videos on the Indie Party website. “This is real transparency, instead of behind closed doors and in the shadows.”
But the Indie Party is not a political party at all. It’s a private, for-profit corporation whose finances are — despite the gauzy advertising — not entirely transparent. And it’s owned not by the voters but by private equity investors who provided the start-up funds.
Indie Party spokesman Mitch Allen identified one of the investors as Las Vegas-based Global Trust Group, and said William Attinger, a former Morgan Stanley derivatives specialist, “led the initial investment” on behalf of the group. Attinger is managing director of venture management for Global Trust Group and is on the board of Raise The Money Inc., an online platform for political fundraising, according to his online bio. Calls and emails left with the Global Trust Group were not returned.
Neither Jenkins nor the Indie Party would identify the three other investors who contributed. Nor did Jenkins or the party say how much Jenkins was paid during his stint as CEO of the Indie Party Co., although Jenkins said his compensation was considerably less than the $600,000 the Indie Party estimated in a U.S. Securities and Exchange filing it would pay officers or directors. At the time of the filing Jenkins was the only disclosed officer or director.
All that will be clarified, Allen said, when Jenkins files his required personal financial disclosure later this summer as a Senate candidate.
You know how some people complains that the Republican and Democratic parties have been taken over by big money corporate interests? With the Indie Party, you can skip the middleman and join a “party” that started out as a big money corporate interest. To once again quote the great philosopher Dogbert, sometimes no sarcastic remark seems adequate. They’ve got a week to turn in their petitions to the Secretary of State (Sec. 142.006. REGULAR FILING DEADLINE FOR APPLICATION. (a) An application for a place on the ballot must be filed not later than 5 p.m. of the 30th day after runoff primary election day, except as provided by Section 202.007.) For what it’s worth, Carole Keeton Strayhorn turned in 223,000 signatures and Kinky Friedman turned in 169,000, both in 2006 for their indy candidacies for Governor. We’ll see how Jenkins compares.
(Note: Strayhorn and Kinky had to turn their sigs in by May 11 that year because the 2006 primary runoffs were held on April 11. The date of the primary runoffs was moved from the second Tuesday in April to the fourth Tuesday via SB100 (see section 6) in 2011. They had less time to collect signatures, but only about 1.2 million people voted in a party primary that year while over 2.5 million did so this year; people who voted in a party primary or a party primary runoff are ineligible to sign a petition for an independent candidate.)
Mentioned in the story but not my excerpt: The Harris County Republican Party has filed a complaint against Jenkins and the Indie Party with the FEC, alleging that “Jenkins and the corporation have violated federal law by providing improper corporate contributions to the Jenkins campaign; illegally coordinating with the Jenkins campaign in getting signatures to put him on the ballot; and failing to file with the FEC as a political committee”. You can find a copy of the complaint here and the attached exhibits here, and you can read into that whatever you want.
Anyway. If you surmise that I am not impressed by Jonathan Jenkins or Indie Party, Incorporated, you would be correct. Whether I need to care about their existence beyond June 21 remains to be seen. Have you observed any of their petition-gatherers? Please leave a comment and let us know.
It is part of the Trump/Russian organization, maybe, just maybe I may be wrong but since the investors/owner are hidden from view there is no doubt that it is being set to get control of this country. Soon we will all have to obey the Russian/Putin.
I am also not impressed that a former CD07 candidate and a former Senate candidate for the Democratic nomination are supporting this crap
I’m obviously a big fan of independent/3d party candidates. but I share Kuff’s skepticism of this particular iteration. Sadly, independent candidates have to start with big money and either go Ross Perot/Jon Anderson, or hijack one of the two big parties, like Trump did.
Michelle, what former CD07 candidate and senate candidate are you talking about? Provide factual evidence.
Bill,
Not sure what you are talking about…Perot had big money. Anderson did not.
Trump is not an independent. He is a narcssistic megalomaniac. Yes, he did take over a good majority party that has given up its principles because the elected officials of that party are scared witless of their base. SAD.