Senate, remembered for money troubles and his outside-the-box attempts to solve them. The co-op probably faces heightened attention on its finances as a result of Brown's 2006 run for the U.S. The BOE could potentially expand the list of categories.' 'Candidate reporting related to the services provided to them by the Co-op is subject to the same rules as apply to reporting about payments to any other vendor,' co-op spokeswoman Camilla Pelliccia wrote in an email. 'The Board of Elections provides a list of expenditure categories from which candidates designate expenditures. That doesn't give the public much detail on what services the candidate is buying or what vendor (print shop? video editor?) is ultimately getting paid. On their campaign finance reports, co-op candidates list more than $100,000 in payments to the co-op for 'consulting and professional services' or 'advertising.'
Those less enthusiastic about the co-op argue that a group whose central message is that Rhode Island is run by a 'corrupt machine' could stand to be more transparent. It may be a novelty now, but if the co-op is successful, other groups, including those that don't share its politics, could try their own take on this new format.
