Remember the Mercer Girls? (From 22 OCTOBER 2010 “Peter DeFazio and the Daughters of Mercer“)
Robert L. Mercer’s daughters (L to R): Heather Sue, Rebekah and Jennifer
Robert [Leroy] Mercer, the New York hedge fund manager who donated $200K to the formerly mysterious “Concerned Taxpayers of America” for anonymous attack ads on Congressman Peter DeFazio (D. Ore.), you will recall. The hedge fund he is co-chief executive of is called Renaissance Technologies.
In ”Peter DeFazio and the Daughters of Mercer” I noted that two of the three daughters had contributed the $2400 maximum to Art Robinson’s GOP primary campaign, along with father Robert. Now, we see that this political “family giving” isn’t unique in the Mercer family.
From the official New York Elections website (a 38-page .pdf):
Or in tabular:
Robert L. Mercer $52,250
Rebekah Mercer $52,000
Jennifer Mercer $52,250
Heather Sue Mercer $50,000
and Diana L. Mercer* $52,250
[* Robert L. Mercer's wife, by triangulation. From the Duke Chronicle, Oct 11, 2000: "[Heather Sue]Mercer’s mother, Diane Mercer”]
I have pixellated the girls’ home addresses. However, the parents, Diana and Robert, both contributed via Renaissance Technologies’ business address, because that’s the address listed on the corp0rate web page. (Their home is located a couple miles East of the corporate office.)
Locations
Long Island
- Renaissance Technologies LLC
- 600 Route 25A
- East Setauket, NY 11733
- USA
And, just to draw the chain tighter, according to US Search (searching for Heather Sue Mercer on Long Island in New York):
Heather MercerHeather S MercerHeather Sue MercerAge:34lived in:Stony Brook, NYNew York, NYSaint James, NYMount Sinai, NYDurham, NCrelated to:Diana Lynne MercerJennifer L MercerJennifer MercerRebekah A MercerRobert L Mercer
Consv Party’s $190K Ad Buy For Lazio
The state Conservative Party has so far spent $190,000 on TV ads that oppose the mosque/Islamic center and boost Republican gubernatorial hopeful Rick Lazio, according to its 11-day pre-primary filing.
That’s just $10,000 less than the candidate himself spent on his first – and so far only – statewide ad buy in advance of his Sept. 14 face-off with Buffalo businessman Carl Paladino. (That’s according to Lazio’s campaign; his filing still hasn’t shown up on the state Board of Elections Website).
[...]
The Conservative Party paid for the ads through its campaign committee, which raised $265,067 between the 32-day and 11-day flings and has $566,265 on hand. The bulk of its cash came from three donors – all of whom share the same last name.
Diana Mercer (a financial consultant at Renaissance Tech., a Long Island-based hedge fund) gave $83,700; Rebekah Mercer gave $94,200 and Heather Mercer $83,716.
Gee. That’s weird. They’d already, evidently, contributed the personal maximum to Lazio’s campaign back at the beginning of the primary season.
Heather Sue Mercer at this year’s World Series of Poker
Do you suppose that somebody’s funneling their personal contributions through their family, and thence through various front organizations?
If that were true, would anything illegal be going on?
Or is it just a fascinating fact?
Inquiring minds want to know.
And that’s a 584-word investigative report.
I know it’s short, but it’s a short season.
And, isn’t un-masking an important part of Halloween, too?
And, speaking of Masks, it seems that Rebekah played a minor character, Terreis, on Xena: Warrior Princess. Seriously.
Rebekah Mercer on Xena as Terreis
Hey, I had to do SOMETHING to pad this out to 584 words.
Courage.
==================
UPDATE: The Mercer-DeFazio blog series now runs long enough for a Table of Contents:
- Where Are All The Crusading Newspaper Editors? (29 September)
- DeFazio’s Tormentors Canned by Republican Senatorial Campaign (17 October)
- Peter DeFazio and the Daughters of Mercer (22 October)
- A Mercer-fully Short Investigative Report (31 October)
- DeFazio: La Belle Dame Plus Mercer, Merci! (9 December)
- Because “Cudgel For Growth” Wouldn’t Sound as Warm and Fuzzy (14 December)
It is nice to see that DeFazio is obsessed with spying on his opponents.
Well, Bill, it’s equally sad to me that you don’t have a clue.
The LEAST you could do is make a clueless slur that made any sort of sense. But, no. You just drool and smash your ice cream cone into your forehead.
My connection to Peter DeFazio is that I put up some lawn signs in 2004. He doesn’t know me from mud, frankly. I haven’t donated to his campaign and I haven’t even got a lawn sign up in my yard. But, even if I had, isn’t this MY congressional district, MY Congressman who’ll go to bat for me when I had problems with my passport? Who will have an office in some downtown office building, so that CITIZENS WHO LIVE HERE have a pipeline to Washington D.C. etc.?
Who gives Robert L. Mercer of New York — in East Setauket, or St. James, or Mount Sinai or wherever he lives — the right to try and decide MY congressman? I don’t try to sneakily decide who HIS congressperson is, and I would have hoped that he’d have had the same consideration for me. I have every right to put up a lawn sign for my local candidate. Mercer does not. Legally, perhaps, but not ethically, not morally, not within the purview of our unalienable rights. That fundamental commitment to decency that is the mortar between the bricks of law and regulation, a civil society.
A society that provides you with electricity and the almost mind-boggling series of interactions that put THAT computer keyboard under your mitts.
But some self-anointed citizens always want to game the system, feel that they are above the fundamental concept of one person one vote that underlies our whole culture. I have exactly as many votes as Robert L. Mercer or Howie Rich. They can pull any sneaky deal they want to pass laws in their district. But stay the hell out of mine. I don’t know any “Tea Party” member who ought to object to that.
My congressional district: MY decision. Not his.
Beyond that, I have EVERY right to ask why a mystery computer scientist on Long Island (and his family) think that they have a stake not only in MY election, but that they try to decide who should represent ME in congress and try to hide their involvement.
Those of us who believe in that old-fashioned concept of home rule are utterly appalled.
Besides: Cite ONE thing that I’ve written that is untrue. I back up my assertions with hard evidence, and I don’t report anything that I don’t know factually.
There’s a lot of things that I suspect, but I don’t go to press with them without proof, and I keep non-public figures out of my stories.
If that’s “spying” then it really wouldn’t matter WHO it was done for, as long as it was a fair and accurate representation of the facts.
Inadequately played, sir.
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