The Washington Times reports:
Out of the hundreds of out-of-work employees, vendors, investors and other creditors in the bankruptcy of government-backed solar-panel maker Solyndra LLC, one name stands out: the California Democratic Party.
Why California Democrats would be creditor to a company that received more than a half-billion dollars in federal loans to build a solar-panel plant isn’t clear. Even party officials say they’re not sure.
The California Democratic Party’s communications director, Tenoch Flores, said the organization was not owed “any funds in any form” by the California-based company. He said he was unclear why the party would be listed as a creditor in Solyndra’s bankruptcy filing.
According to campaign-finance records, Solyndra donated $7,500 to the California Democratic Party in October 2010. It’s legal in California for corporations to make donations. But that doesn’t explain why the company would identify the Democratic Party as a creditor in its bankruptcy filing a year later.
Add that to the list of questions Solyndra executives have yet to answer.
The only investors less likely to pick a winner than the federal governments is the government of the State of California.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhy?
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse"For services rendered."
The California Democratic Party being listed on the creditor list is a non-story. It is a common practice to list all of the bankrupt companies vendors as creditors so that bankruptcy court communications would include as many potential claimants as possible. So Solyndra probably simply printed out its Accounts Payable vendor list for the court. Because they had made payments in the past, the CDP would be on that list even if they were not owned anything at this time.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhat good or service did the democrat party perform for Solyndra that would make them a vendor? Or perhaps it was a donation Solyndra gave to them, a donation it now turns out, that was funded by me.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseVendor is probably the wrong word. The California DNC likely received a contribution from Solyndra. Solyndra must have cut a check then, and because of that disbursement, the DNC was probably listed as "vendor" in the Solyndra AP system.
The bankruptcy attorney - as has been pointed out - then literally prints a list of all "vendors" in the AP system, and attaches that list to the bankruptcy filing.
Several years ago, my wife and I were (tiny) donors to a charitable organization that declared bankruptcy. We received a letter from the bankruptcy court and were listed as a potential creditor. Clearly, we weren't, but our attorney explained to us how our name got on the list.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOops, left a part out - the charity had returned to us a portion of our donation because it was for an charitable auction item (that we had bid on and won and paid for) that became unavailable after they had already cashed our check. So, my wife and I were in the charity's AP system.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAlaskan is right. I am a corporate bankrutpcy attorney that does this type of chapter 11 work, and the fact that CDP was identified on a list of "creditors" does not necessarily mean anything other than CDP received a payment from the debtor at some point (which we already knew about). These lists are almost always overinclusive to ensure that anyone who potentially may have a claim receives notice of the bankruptcy proceedings. If there is more to the story than that (which there may be), the list in question isn't evidence of it.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSomeone please correct me if I am wrong. However, it has been my understanding for some time that should a company declare bankruptcy, those that receive funds from that company at a point before the declaration (60 or 90 days I believe), must return those funds to the court appointed trustee.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe chorus calling this a non-story is right: the creditor matrix in a bankruptcy filing loops in a lot of folks, and it's not surprising that the Democratic Party might appear on it. The real question is why the Washington Times couldn't find a bankruptcy attorney to give them some color on this before writing it up in a fashion that makes it some ominous mystery. It really just makes the Times look bad: given the huge amount of juicy scandal in this story, they feel the need to publish poorly-analyzed drivel?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseSeems to me that they are just reporting the facts. The "ominous" tone is your own interpretation.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWhatever the reasons, it sure looks good on two of them.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseInSolventdra and the Democratic Party being tied together like this is only fitting.