Republican lawmaker escapes penalty for repeatedly missing campaign finance deadlines
Jul. 24—A Republican lawmaker will not face any penalties for routinely failing to file timely campaign finance reports for his political action committee.
The Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics & Election Practices ruled on Wednesday that Rep. Richard Campbell, of Orrington, violated state law. But commissioners were not able to assess a financial penalty because Campbell's Building the Maine House PAC has not actively raised or spent money for the last four years.
Under state law, the commission can only assess fines based either on financial activity of the PAC or missing campaign finance reports. But neither of those applied because the PAC was not active during the reporting period and Campbell did eventually file a missing report.
The only other option available for commission would have been to refer the matter to the Attorney General for possible prosecution, since failing to file a finance report within 30 days of the deadline is a Class E crime. But commission staff said they could not recall a similar criminal referral within the last two decades.
"The statute has a little bit of a quirk in it," Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Bolton said. "Perhaps the commission should think about proposing to the Legislature a change in this so there can be some kind of minimum, automatic penalty."
Commissioners decided that referring the matter to the AG's office would have been excessive, even though Campbell is a veteran lawmaker who said he was aware of the filing requirements.
"I would hope this is definitely a wake-up call about the obligation to file," said Commissioner David Hastings, a Republican. "This should be something you are well aware of, having gone through so many years of this. But the fact that there was no activity with the PAC itself does tell me there was little public harm caused by it and I would be reluctant to refer it to the Attorney General."
The PAC has filed nine reports late since 2019, including one that was due May 31 but was not filed until July 16, according to a memo commission staff, which stated that the group has a "unique history of showing insufficient attention to filing campaign finance reports on time."
Commission staff, who had occasionally filed reports on the PAC's behalf at Campbell's request from 2020 to 2022, wanted to send a message about the importance of filing reports on time.
"Message delivered," Joshua Tardy, an attorney representing Campbell, told the commission. "The staff memo is very clear on what the PAC's obligations are. I assure this commission that nothing has ever been intentional. There's no desire to tread upon the threshold of a criminal investigation. I would accept a penalty if there was jurisdiction to impose such."
Tardy said the PAC is planning to replace its treasurer and may fold.
Anna Kellar, executive director of the Maine Citizens for Clean Elections, said the group is interested changing state law so similar violations don't go unpunished in the future. The PAC may not have been active financially, but they did have nearly $7,000 in cash on hand, Kellar noted.
"(I) am interested to talk more with the commissioners about closing that loophole," Kellar said. "PAC reports need to be filed even when there is no activity — there is also a public interest in knowing who has sums of political money on hand."
Copy the Story Link
