On January 22, 2015, I filed a PAC (political action committee) – “Recall Silbkraus PAC” – with the Secretary of State’s office as the PAC’s registered agent.
Unfortunately, in listing the name of the PAC I “pulled a Ralston” and misspelled “Silberkraus” in the “Name of Committee” field – though it was spelled correctly in the “Purpose” section of the form.
After the typo was pointed out to me, I faxed up an amended form to the SoS on January 25, 2015. On it I checked the box titled “Amended Registration.” Why? Because I was amending an existing PAC registration, not creating a new one.
There was also a box that I checked titled, “Change Name,” since, well, that’s all I was doing…changing the name to the correct spelling.
Next to the “Change Name” box was a box asking me for the “Previous Name of PAC.” So I typed in the name of the PAC previously filed which included the “Ralston.”
Below “Name of Committee” I typed in the correct spelling of the one word I had initially Ralstonized.
Seems pretty simple and straightforward, no?
No.
On Thursday morning I got a call from some woman in the Secretary of State’s office who proceeded to advise me that I hadn’t properly completed the form to change the name of the PAC. She told me I had to fill out all of the information on the entire form even though nothing was being changed except two letters in the committee’s name.
I told this woman over and over again that the only thing I was changing was the name of the PAC, had checked the appropriate box indicating this was an amended registration not a new registration, and recorded both the old name of the PAC and the one I was changing it to.
The conversation generally went like this from that point…
“It’s not complete.”
“Yes, it is.”
“You have to fill out the entire form again.”
“No, I don’t.”
“If you don’t, then I can’t scan it and post it on the website.”
“If you choose not to post it on the website, that’s your choice. But I filled out everything I need to fill out.”
At that point she slammed the phone down.
Bureaucrats REALLY don’t like it when the peasants challenge their authority or the stupidity of their dotted “i’s” and crossed “t’s” in triplicate insanity…as if we have nothing better to do with our time than jump through their hoops.
I do. I have this newsletter to write!
