(August 2002) When Paul Drockton found out that Farmers Insurance Co was involved in certain illegal activities he contacted the office of Chris Cannon (Republican). Drockton’s office is in Provo, Utah; Cannon’s District. Cannon’s office was extremely interested and asked that all the documents be faxed to them. They were given everything. But no investigation ever came of it.
At this same time (2002) Chris Cannon's campaign finances were inserious debt. In 2002, Chris Cannon took in about $364,357 in donations to his campaign. His debt was $1,718,742.00. Things were not looking up.
Up until that point, Campaign contributions from Insurance Industry groups was only about 1% of his total contributions. All Insurance Industry contributions totalled about $3,000.
In October, 2002 he received a check from American Insurance Association (AIA) for $1000. About this same time Zurich/Farmers began contributing to AIA. In all Zurich/Farmers gave $4,550 to AIA in 2002. All of it after Drockton filed his complaint with Farmers/Zurich. Prior to this Zurich made no contributions to this PAC at all.
Other Insurance Divisions began contributing to Cannon as well, totaling another $3500.
Drockton began to feel the heat from his local Farmers Group, and by December 2002, Drockton had to get a restraining order and injunction against them. He spent much of the first part of the next year trying to get Farmers investigated. He turned all of the materials over to Utah County Investigators, the FBI and other law enforcement. Nothing happened.
For the Chris Cannon campaign funds, 2003 was an unprecedented year of contributions!
His debt was down to $22,746 from $1,718,742.
His campaign contributions nearly doubled to $640,259.
