Politics
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AUGUSTA, Maine — Regulators fined Republican gubernatorial candidate Bobby Charles nearly $23,000 on Monday for accepting dozens of contributions over state limits, rejecting his campaign’s request to decide after Election Day.
The penalty is half of the roughly $45,000 that donors gave Charles’ campaign beyond the cap for the general election, and double the minimum that was recommended by staff of the Maine Ethics Commission last week.
Charles drew the fine eight days before Election Day, entering the final stretch as an underdog to Democrat Hannah Pingree. It is also apparently the first penalty of its kind. In a memo, commission staff said they had no record of assessing fines to candidates for over-the-limit contributions because such errors are usually small enough for campaigns to fix alone.
The case started with an Oct. 1 complaint from the Maine Democratic Party. It flagged dozens of excess contributions on Charles’ September campaign finance report and asked the commission to investigate whether he took them knowingly, which would be a crime.
Ethics staff don’t believe the campaign took the money on purpose. The Charles campaign’s treasurer, Bill Riley, told staff the problem came after a new compliance consultant took over from the person who handled the primary.
Charles’ campaign has since returned all of the excess money and amended its reports. Its lawyers asked the commission to put off a decision until Nov. 18 and impose no penalty, citing the campaign’s cooperation and the short notice on the staff’s recommendation.
But the refunds did not erase the violation, commissioners said at a Monday meeting in Augusta. A motion to hold another pre-election meeting to give the campaign more time to explain itself failed. Commissioner Sarah LeClaire, a Democrat, said the campaign took no action between its September filing and the complaint.
“Every penny has been returned, but it’s the acceptances of the overages and the failure to do anything about it on their own that weigh on me,” LeClaire said.
Commissioners assessed the fine in a 4-1 vote. The dissenter was Republican Dennis Keschl, a former state representative from Belgrade who said he wanted to know more about what the campaign did to prevent more overages after its first report.
Commissioner Brooke Bailey, a Democrat who chairs the body, said the penalty had to be large enough to deter other candidates.
“I think, at base, we want to be sending a message out to other campaigns,” Bailey said. “I think it sends that message, and I think it completes the interest of disposing of this matter prior to the election.”