DL Exclusive: Hundreds of Politicians/PACs in Violation of State Campaign Finance Law. Nobody’s Collecting the Fines.

Filed in Delaware by on March 4, 2015

Deadbeat campaigns, committees and PAC’s currently owe the Delaware Department of Elections (long pause to change the batteries in my calculator)…$769,240.  I count 258 individual fines that have been assessed, but never collected.

Some of the outstanding fines are gargantuan.  Some appear to have close correlation to key political events, so the committees involved not only owe the money, they have some ‘splainin’ to do.

Since the largest fines have been imposed on the Sussex County Democratic Executive Committee, and since they date back to the year (2008) when an incredible array of resources were poured into the race to elect John Atkins to the General Assembly, possibly cementing a D majority in the House, and since not a nickel has been paid back, I can only ask, “Why?”.  Why no action? (Late-breaking news: According to both the Commissioner of Elections and the current Sussex County chair, that $160,000-plus fine has now been labeled an ‘error’.  Because, as we all know, $160,000 fines are levied in error every day. Where is Rose Mary Woods when we need her?)

Here’s how the system is supposed to work, according to sources both within the State Department of Elections and the Office of the Attorney General.  After about 60 days or so, uncollected fines/violations are turned over to the Attorney General’s office for follow-up, according to Elaine Manlove, Commissioner of Elections.  It is clear that little to no follow-up has occurred since, well, 2008, at least.  Multiple sources have told me that they have not even received any notification from the AG’s office that they are in violation. Not that they shouldn’t already know, but still…

Here’s what Carl Kanefsky of the AG’s office says of the way it’s supposed to work:

“Under Section 8044 of the Elections Code, the State Election Commissioner is given authority to impose fines for the late filing or non-filing of campaign finance reports.  Those decisions are assigned to the State Elections Commissioner.   If the State Elections Commissioner imposes fines on candidates for late or non-filing of campaign finance reports, and is unable to collect those fines, the Department of Justice will seek to collect those fines via civil action upon request from the State Elections Commissioner, as the Department would do for any other state agency unable to collect fines that it had properly assessed.  Because the Attorney General just took office in January, we have asked the Commissioner to let us know which fines it wishes the Department of Justice to pursue through legal action. There are some fines related to late filing of 2012 and 2013 campaign reports that are already the subject of civil action request from Elections.

Under Section 8043 of the Elections Code, the Department of Justice has the discretion to allege misdemeanor criminal charges for the late filing or non-filing of campaign finance reports.  The decision whether to bring criminal charges is within the discretion of the Department of Justice.  Although we are not aware of any instances where misdemeanor charges have been filed in the past for such violations, the Department will consider whether to bring such charges under appropriate circumstances for reports filed in 2015 and going forward.

Here’s what’s not clear to me. If all candidate committees, political committees and PACs in violation of the Code have had their files forwarded to the Attorney General, why is it then up to the Elections Commissioner to pick and choose which ones to go after? Hardly sounds like equal justice to me if indeed that’s the process. Manlove told me that all uncollected fines are forwarded to the AG’s office so, is that the end of it from DOE, or is subsequent contact required by the AG’s office to determine which fines DOE reallyreally want to collect? Or is the alleged ‘process’ just bureaucratese  to maintain a system enforced jointly by Alfonse and Gaston?

Here’s what’s become clear to me:  Somewhere between the Commissioner of Elections and the Office of Attorney General, there is a big black hole where election fines go to disappear.  Meaning, there’s no enforcement of our laughably-weak statutes, at least there wasn’t during the ‘Beau Years’. Here are some of the biggest beneficiaries/scofflaws (over $10 K in fines not collected), according to the Department of Elections:

Sussex County Democratic Executive Committee, circa 2008: $162,700.  Now labeled an ‘error’.

Friends for Becnel (2013): $11,700

Friends of Pam Thornburg (2012-14): $15,400

Short for State Senate (2013): $11,700

Citizens to Elect Vincent M. White (2013): $11,350

Friends of Ernest Trippi Congo (2013): $11,350.  At least he’s consistent.

Opaliski Campaign (2013-14): $12,500. Law-abiding in every sense of the word.

Citizens for Fran Swift (2013-14): $11,750

Committee to Elect Karen Minner (2013-14): $12,050

Friends of Joseph O’Leary (2013): $11,500

Friends of Marion Jones (2013): $11,250

Victoria Kent Campaign Committee (2013-14): $11,600

Committee to Elect David R. Brown, Jr. (2013-14): $12,050

Friends of Tyler Brooks (2013-14): $12,050

Hovington for Senate (2013): $11,350

Denise 4 Dewey (2013-14): $12,050

Committee to Elect Rebecca Powers (2013-14): $14,000

LEADPAC (2013-14): $26,800. 5 separate violations. Charlie Copeland‘s signature is on the reports.

Delawareans for Economic Growth (2013-14): $31,000. 5 separate violations. Small PAC, headed by Chamber lobbyist Joe Fitzgerald.

Delaware Liberty: (2013-14): $12,050. A ‘Patriot’ organization.

EPIC PHARM PAC of Delaware (2013-14): $24,350

Wilmington’s Future PAC: $12,050 Would’ja believe that Tom Carper donated $25K to this PAC? He did. This PAC was active during the Wilmington mayoral campaign of 2012. Who did Carper support?

Republican State Committee of Delaware: $11,950. 4 separate violations.

34th Democratic Committee: $78,100 !!! Hmmm, yet another ‘error’?

10th RD Democratic Committee (2012-2014): $98,950!!!. 5 separate violations.  The final one for the primary 2014 report.  And here I thought Dennis E. Williams was an accountant.

There are scores of smaller fines.  Just click on the first icon on the right at the bottom of the snippet we’ve provided at the top of this article (the icon with the down arrow), and you can open the entire file in Excel.  Or, click the icon furthest to the right and the file should show up in Excel Online format. Find out how many of your favorite politicians are scofflaws. Come back and share your stories. BTW, why has this information not been made readily available to the public prior to this?  And why are committees permitted to move forward as if they are not in violation even though they have not settled up?

This system is broken. The state is out somewhere between $600,000 and $760,000 of revenue that no one has taken steps to collect.

Matt Denn: You’re now on the clock.

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  1. jason330 says:

    This looks a lot like many of our state’s “self-regulated” industries.

  2. Yep, and we have two state agencies who are leaving it to deadbeat politicians and PACs to regulate themselves.

  3. Mitch Crane says:

    Most fines levied would be for failure to timely file the required report. That fine was $50 per MONTH until September 2012; then it was raised to $50/day. I was not a member of the Sussex Democratix Executive Committee in 2008, but we had a very competent treasurer then in Karen Chapman. Even if she had failed to file the 2008 end of year report and was fined the maximum allowed by law, that would be $50/month for 2009-2012 and then $50/day after the law was changed. By my rough math, it would total $40,700. There is no way a fine could have accumalated to $162,000. My current treasurer saw this “fine” last month and notified me. I instructed her to check with the BOE and I contacted the two treasurers before her. All reports were timely filed by them and the BOE said it was an error. It seemd that errors populated the system when they changed the reporting format a year ago.

    For everyone’s information, the Sussex County Party in 2008 and up until last year’s election, when we changed what we spent–with no positive results-the county party did not contribute directly to any candidate and the only money spent on the elections was money receive from filing fees–around $20,000 each election.

  4. donviti says:

    yes, but if you have to pay/hire people to collect those fines, then it’s like a net loss after the 15 years it’ll take to get the money.

    So are you saying you want to raise taxes!!!!

    Why do you hate delaware

  5. DV: The people are already there. But I think you knew that.

    Mitch: I spoke to Elaine Manlove for the story. She did not in any way claim that there were scores of erroneous fines due to changes in reporting last year. Rather,she said that these violations went, or should have gone, to the AG’s office after some 60 days or so. I admit that I am getting neither full nor straight answers from the powers-that-be. It’s time we got some.

    She DID say that the $160,000 fine was erroneous, but would provide no additional info.

  6. liberalgeek says:

    FWIW, the fine change to $50/day corresponded with a change in the reporting system. The system itself is somewhat rickety. Treasurers change, the actual updating of officers is somewhat daunting. New treasurers are sometimes left with years of data that has never been sorted. I have taken over for two separate treasurers that had been largely absentee for a long time before I took over.

    Combine that with (in the case of RDs at least) very small balances and a completely volunteer structure, you are going to have people that forget and aren’t notified of a filing deadline 30 days before an election.

    I missed two deadlines by less than a week in time periods where no money was brought in or went out. I now owe more than the committee is worth. Where is that money going to come from? Dunno. I suspect that I’ll have to pay the fine eventually out of pocket since I’d hate to spend all the time setting up a spaghetti dinner, or a pancake breakfast or two just to pay the State of Delaware the cash.

  7. “I missed two deadlines by less than a week in time periods where no money was brought in or went out.”

    If your committee had paid the fines then, it wouldn’t be a problem now.

    People can argue whether or not the system is unfair. It is the system that the legislators voted for and that was implemented.

    Now that the rocks have been overturned, we’re hearing this response for the first time.

  8. Mitch Crane says:

    El Som, my treasurer was told by the DOE (not by Elaine) that the fine for the Sussex Dem Committee was an “error” and that there is no fine. She did not ask for an explanation and was not given one.

  9. BTW, the General Assembly changed the law (DOE does not have the unilateral authority to do so on its own) precisely BECAUSE there were so many scofflaw committees who were ignoring the existing statute.

    By changing the fine from a monthly to a daily fine, the legislative intent was to create an action-forcing mechanism to make it more costly to be out of compliance than to be in compliance. Too many committees reacted with collective yawns.

    Now we’re hearing, “We can’t afford to pay, the fines are too onerous.”

    Nobody’s fault but theirs.

  10. liberalgeek says:

    That response has gone in the form of unanswered emails and phone calls to DOE previously. I don’t understand why paying the fines at the time (BTW, there doesn’t appear to be any sort of “pay now” functionality on the website) would in any way improve the situation of the committee. Since these fines have been levied, there has been no income or expenditures. We would be just as broke.

    I guess the next time a question comes up about committee and filing deadlines, I’ll just come to El Somnambulo first.

  11. I gotcha, Mitch. You have also said that you weren’t around in 2008, and that no explanation has been forthcoming from DOE to you or the committee as to why or how it was a mistake, so my question remains: “How is it possible to make a $160,000 mistake?” Not questioning your part in this at all. Hey, that’s why I called you about it. I just want an explanation from Elections and/or the AG’s office.

  12. Please, LG. You said that you missed the deadline by a week. If you paid the fine then, the fine would not have accrued past when the fine was paid and the account settled.

    Your committee might have been just as broke, but you wouldn’t have been as deep in debt. Am I missing something here? It DOES make a difference whether you owe, say $250 or, say $5000, doesn’t it?

  13. liberalgeek says:

    As for collective yawns, I would challenge that. Do you have data on whether the filings have been more timely since this was instituted? I suspect that they have been.

    FWIW, I didn’t even know about the fine structure change until the first deadline had passed. Perhaps I missed a letter, perhaps they didn’t send one. I don’t know. My second case was less than 24 hours late because I had trouble navigating the site. It’s complex and in some cases only accessed annually. In addition, there doesn’t appear to be any sort of appeal process.

    If I could run a committee without any money changing hands, I would do it.

  14. liberalgeek says:

    These are no accruals. the numbers above are fines that are based purely on how long the report went unfiled. There are no interest fees above.

  15. How much does your committee owe?

  16. Bane says:

    This is fine, I guess, especially calling out these PACs; but I worry about the individual campaigns/candidates who barely had the money to run but took a chance. The major campaigns who always have the money to pay fines and hire compliance staff to stay up to date on their filing deadlines will not be effected by this. It’s the smaller challengers who are fighting an uphill battle to run for office who will be punished and shamed for not being able to raise the necessary funds to avoid things like DOE fines. I’m not as much of a Kim Williams Kool-Aid drinker as some; but this was an attack at her opponent, cloaked in an open government agenda.

    Did she happen to stumble upon some great examples of malfeasance in her quest; sure. However, make no mistake, if the AG starts going after these individual campaigns, it’s the little guy that gets hurt, and all of the fat cats are protected once again from the threat of new opponents.

    Just my view

  17. liberalgeek says:

    Example: you miss a filing deadline on 1/15/16. There hasn’t been an election or filing in a year. It happens.

    You file on 1/16/12. Your account says: you have a fine of $50.

    You don’t get a bill.

    You log on in October 2016 and file your 30 day report. You account still says you have a fine of $50. Still no bill.

    Is that more clear?

  18. Bane: That argument was made by people who opposed the legislation. While I agree with it to a certain extent, it did not carry the day. Kim Williams was not in the General Assembly at the time the bill was passed, and I don’t know anything about what you’re referencing.

    However, if reports are filed on a timely basis, these fines wouldn’t accrue to these levels. I’ve run myself, and the reports are not that onerous.

    As LG points out, the clock stops once the report is filed. No excuse for not filing the report when you know the penalty for not filing it. Actually, I think it’s in some ways WORSE that the clock stops when the report is filed. That fine can just sit there and sit there, and there’s no additional penalty for not paying it off in a given amount of time. But that’s the law.

  19. Bane says:

    Didn’t say that she was there. Did not say that she passed the bill. However, she is the one leading this current effort to collect these fees. The whole purpose is for politicians to make it harder for challengers. Has nothing to do with good government or tax payer dollars.

    Thats all

  20. Bane says:

    But you were involved in politics El. Not all of us live and breathe this stuff and work in these fields. People get an urge to serve and they run. They don’t know all of the rules to compliance, they have other jobs, and things happen. But to parade them around as deadbeats and consider denying them access to the ballot because they don’t have the resources or the institutional knowledge to navigate the arena, is rather petty. Collect from the PACs, collect from sitting office holders, but if they lose wave the fees.

  21. no surprise says:

    Quite honestly, it would not bother me if every slate was forgiven if I thought that going forward people would just accept responsibility for following the letter of the law. But, I don’t think that would ever happen. The election laws are pretty clear. They are available online from the elections web site. When I first acted as treasurer for a campaign I read the law and referred to it frequently. Each election cycle sets forth a calendar of filing deadlines. No one should have to receive a written notice of a filing deadline. Furthermore, missing a deadline over a few days doesn’t have to rise to the level of default if the treasurer contacts DOE for assistance.

    If a campaign or committee finds the process too onerous, maybe they shouldn’t run for office or be in a money handling position.

  22. liberalgeek says:

    Actually, let’s take a 2 year cycle. 2011/2012 had the following due dates for any random NCC committee:

    Jan 2011 End of year
    Feb 2011 30-day for Special election (NCC Pres)
    March 2011 8-Day for special election
    Jan 2012 End of year
    Aug 2012 30-Day primary
    Sept 2012 8-Day Primary
    Oct 2012 30-Day General
    Oct 2012 8-Day General

    All of those have relatively tight deadlines. And I know a lot of them would have gone the whole 2 year cycle with only minor variance of income/expense.

    I have been part of at least 2 committees and pretty much the only expenditure that we actually had was paying for lunch for the poll workers on election day. It’s silly that we have to track this with such regularity for such small sums of money. Most RD committees have almost no balance.

    I’d love to see the ratio of owed fines to current balance (which is something else that DOE has). My guess? Most of the committees above were underwater within a week of delinquency.

  23. DEvoter302 says:

    If you want a story audit some of these reports. There are blatant violations of campaign laws/unethical if not illegal expenditures.

  24. Bane: I was no genius when it came to campaign finance. I’m still not. However, when I ran, I got a treasurer (which, BTW, is required before a committee can be filed), and stayed in touch with them. Simple as that. Hardly seems like an onerous imposition. I mean, candidates have to exercise SOME responsibility when they run, don’t they?

    I’ve got some clarifying information from Carl Kanefsky from Matt Denn’s office, who has been very helpful in walking me through this. According to Carl, notices are sent out by the Department of Elections, not the AG’s office. He also said that the AG’s office depends on the Elections Commissioner to determine what fines to pursue, they do not do so on their own. Which still leaves an unanswered question: What the bleep is Elections doing when it comes to the money owed it?

    Kanefsky also wrote: “The chart that you have published does not represent what has been referred to the Attorney General’s Office for potential collections.”

    That runs contrary to what Elaine Manlove told me. She said that delinquent fines are referred to the AG’s office roughly 60 days after there has been no response from the offending committees.

  25. where's bodie? says:

    Don’t see a committee at all for Bodie? Wtf?

  26. The only committees you would see in the spreadsheet would be those in violation of campaign finance reporting requirements.

  27. Prop Joe says:

    When Elaine Manlove did her JFC presentation, the issue of uncollected fines was raised… I believe her response was “We do not send out the fine for ‘collection’ if the individual/committee is actively working with us to rectify the unfiled reports.”

    The back and forth went on to indicated that a single phone call or email could be considered “working with”, thus moving the fine onto the “It’s okay… They’re nice… We won’t try to collect” pile.

  28. Sounds about right. They aren’t doing bupkus.

    Plus, Manlove gave me a whole different answer. Turned out not to be true.

    How can you be the Commissioner of Elections if you won’t enforce the law and/or won’t enforce the law evenly?

  29. AGovernor says:

    I couldn’t get through all of the comments, but saw some discussion on the fines adding up over the years.

    Once the committee files the fines stop accruing. The balance due stays the same until paid or waived via an appeal. So the guy who filed late by a week is only fined for that week, once he filed the fines stopped building. There does not appear to be a penalty for not paying the fine in a timely manner, but why should there be as no one tries to collect the fines, it is all just digits on a web site with no real meaning.

  30. AGovernor says:

    Dude, I just used your sheet to look up Victoria Kent Campaign committee, you list that committee as owing $11,000, but I only found $950 in fines.

  31. Steve Newton says:

    The spreadsheet (not ElSom’s fault) also lists fines as active that I know have been waived. For example, the Libertarian Party fine, Gordon Smith’s, and John Machurek’s were all appealed and we have the waiver emails on file. While they are small fines for minor parties, the point is: we appealed those fines (difficulties with using the reporting system; proved that we had tried multiple times in a timely manner) and Department of Elections issued a waiver.

    The fact that all the waivers they issued are not included on the spreadsheet is disturbing.

  32. You’re right, AGuv. I reviewed the list in a smaller typeface, so it’s possible that’s not the only mistake. It was the Gary Hutt campaign, on the line just above Kent’s, which owes over $11K.

    Headed to the ophthalmologist…

  33. AGovernor says:

    I am being lazy I know, but who is the candidate in Citizens for Williams?

    Assuming that is not City Councilman Bob Williams, 8 of 12 city of Wilmington council folks have some unpaid fines.

  34. anon says:

    Didn’t say that she was there. Did not say that she passed the bill. However, she is the one leading this current effort to collect these fees. The whole purpose is for politicians to make it harder for challengers. Has nothing to do with good government or tax payer dollars.

    Kim Willams challenger Ken Startzman didn’t file a report with the DOE until November 20, 2014, almost 3 weeks after the election. What baffles me more than anything else is how he was even allowed on the ballot after not filing one statement and not declaring any donations or expenditures.

    2014 Annual Original Financial Statement 01003212 Friends of Jim Startzman Candidate Committee 01/20/2015 2014 State Office – State Representative – District 19
    2014 8 Day 2014 General 11/4/2014 Amended Financial Statement 01003212 Friends of Jim Startzman Candidate Committee 11/21/2014 2014 State Office – State Representative – District 19
    2014 8 Day 2014 General 11/4/2014 Original Financial Statement 01003212 Friends of Jim Startzman Candidate Committee 11/21/2014 2014 State Office – State Representative – District 19
    2014 30 Day 2014 General 11/4/2014 Amended Financial Statement 01003212 Friends of Jim Startzman Candidate Committee 11/21/2014 2014 State Office – State Representative – District 19
    2014 30 Day 2014 General 11/4/2014 Original Financial Statement 01003212 Friends of Jim Startzman Candidate Committee 11/20/2014 2014 State Office – State Representative – District 19

    This is the kind of flagrant violation of state law that needs to be addressed. At $50 a day what would Startzman’s fines be today? Will they allow this jackass on a ballot again in 2 years if he has outstanding fines?

  35. Delanotice says:

    I see the Delaware Young Democrats are on this list to the tune of several thousand dollars. Who’s on the Executive Board of that organization?