House Ethics closes Rep. Huizenga probe: 'No clear pattern of misspending'

The U.S. House Ethics Committee concluded a five-year investigation into whether U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Holland Township, used campaign funds for personal trips by finding "no clear pattern of misspending."

The committee on Wednesday closed the matter, issuing a report saying "Huizenga and his staff generally acted within the bounds of the law when spending campaign and official funds." It said the campaign had improved its recordkeeping and that Huizenga cooperated with the review throughout.

"We are glad to have this five-year-old partisan attack finally put to rest," said Brian Patrick, Huizenga's spokesman. "The report notes our consistent cooperation, takes no action against our office and recommends better and updated guidance for all members, which we support. We want to thank the committee for a thorough investigation and successful resolution of this matter."

It is not unusual for the Ethics Committee to take up claims such as those raised regarding Huizenga, though many of its investigations are concluded in a shorter time frame.

In 2019, the Ethics Committee began its review of a report from the independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), which had raised questions as to whether Huizenga had converted campaign funds to personal use and accepted prohibited contributions from his staff in ways that violated federal law and House rules over much of his time in the House.

Huizenga was elected to Congress in 2010.

Specifically, OCE questioned spending over several years to pay for Huizenga, his family and members of his congressional staff and their families to make trips to Disney World, Park City in Utah, and the biennial Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference on Mackinac Island, dating to 2015. Huizenga claimed that each had a campaign-related purpose and that staff went along as either paid or volunteer workers for the campaign, as allowed by federal law. The report noted there is "no clear prohibition on using campaign funds to pay for travel by staffers’ family members."

A similar complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in 2018 was dismissed in 2019 as the Ethics Committee was beginning its review. Michigan Democrats filed that complaint with the FEC.

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The Ethics Committee, after looking at some 10,000 pages of records, largely agreed with Huizenga, saying that while, "Some expenditures paid for by Representative Huizenga’s campaign, particularly during travel to recreational destinations, fell within unclear areas of FEC regulations ... there was an established campaign purpose for each of the trips reviewed."

The report also noted in a footnote that while payments made by staffers to the campaign for various expenses like tickets and food for the campaign qualified as improper contributions, it found those workers were "properly reimbursed" by the campaign. Huizenga told the committee he was unaware of that being the case and put in place a safeguard to ensure it doesn't happen again.

The Ethics Committee said while Huizenga's conduct did not violate the law or House rules, he and his campaign "should have exercised more care to even the appearance of improper use" of funds.

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"Frequent and substantial spending in these areas, coupled with maintaining poor records and reporting practices, will invite increased scrutiny into a campaign’s finances and create the appearance that a member is living a lavish lifestyle by virtue of his position," it said. "Representative Huizenga took full advantage of the discretion afforded to him, even in instances where it appeared that the campaign spent more to attend fundraisers than it raised."

"By maintaining consistent records verifying the campaign purpose of such spending, a member in Representative Huizenga’s position would be able to more readily respond to questions raised about their spending and exercise more restraint in whether to permit certain campaign expenses," the report concluded.

Contact Todd Spangler: tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: House Ethics closes Huizenga probe: 'No clear pattern of misspending'