Republican Presidential Candidate Marco Rubio to Fundraise in OC Today

Sen. Marco Rubio is scheduled to conduct a fundraiser in Irvine tonight for his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, hours before the end of the quarterly reporting period.

Candidates are required to file fundraising reports for the second three months of the year with the Federal Election Commission by July 15. Those reports can be an early indication of a candidate’s viability.

Tickets for a photo reception are priced at $2,700 per person, the maximum individual contribution for a candidate seeking his or her party’s presidential nomination, and $2,700 per couple for dinner, according to an invitation posted on the website of the Lincoln Club of Orange County.

The event is expected to be closed to reporters, like nearly all fundraisers for presidential candidates. There was no response to emails sent to the Rubio campaign and his Senate office Monday.

The 44-year-old Rubio, who would be the nation’s first Latino president, turned to Facebook on Monday in an attempt to win support for his three-part plan to replace President Barack Obama’s health care law.

The first-term Florida senator’s plan calls for an “advanceable, refundable tax credit all Americans can use to purchase health insurance”; changing insurance regulations to encourage innovation; and placing Medicare and Medicaid on “fiscally sustainable paths.”

Also on Monday, Rubio joined Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, in urging the Pakistani government to provide an honest and transparent account of the events surrounding the case of the 10 Taliban fighters allegedly responsible for the 2012 attack teenage activist Malala Yousafzai, the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize recipient.

“This past April, Pakistani officials announced that, after a secret trial, all 10 suspects were found guilty for their roles in the attack against Malala and received 25 year prison sentences,” the senators wrote in a letter to Pakistan’s Ambassador to the U.S., Jalil Abbas Jilani.

“Although we have serious concerns about the trial’s lack of transparency and general absence of information regarding the cases against these 10 individuals, we were encouraged to hear that the Pakistani judicial system was actively working to hold those responsible for this heinous act.

“That is why we are particularly alarmed by recent media reports that eight of the 10 convicted were actually acquitted of these charges against them. These reports raise significant concerns about the transparency and the accountability of the Pakistani judicial system.

“As such, we respectfully request that the Pakistani judicial system provide an honest and transparent accounting of the events surrounding the cases against these 10 individuals and continue its important work to bring all those responsible for the brutal attack against an innocent teenage girl to justice.”

Rubio is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere, Transnational Crime, Civilian Security, Democracy, Human Rights and Global Women’s Issues and Boxer is its ranking minority member.

City News Service