{"id":280229,"date":"2010-02-05T00:26:48","date_gmt":"2010-02-05T05:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.opensecrets.org,2010:\/news\/\/8.1352"},"modified":"2010-02-05T10:04:05","modified_gmt":"2010-02-05T15:04:05","slug":"federal-election-commission-fines-arlen-specters-senate-campaign-treasurer-for-donation-violations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/280229","title":{"rendered":"Federal Election Commission Fines Arlen Specter’s Senate Campaign, Treasurer For Donation Violations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"arlenspecter.jpg\"<\/a>U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter<\/a>, a Pennsylvania Republican-turned-Democrat<\/a> facing a contentious re-election bid<\/a>, will do so with less campaign cash after the Federal Election Commission fined him for accepting “excessive contributions from individuals and political committees.”<\/p>\n

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The FEC decision<\/a>, announced Thursday, names both Specter’s campaign committee and former committee treasurer, Stephen Harmelin<\/a>, as respondents in the case. The FEC ruling states that they must pay a $10,900 civil penalty and refund or pay $37,950 for excessive contributions to the U.S. Treasury.<\/div>\n
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An FEC audit report from 2007<\/a> states that in 2003 and 2004, Citizens for Arlen Specter<\/a> accepted contributions from 892 individuals and nine political action committees that exceeded federal limits. The excessive contributions initially totaled more than $1 million, the report states.<\/div>\n
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In December, Citizens for Arlen Specter, and Harmelin individually, submitted a conciliation agreement<\/a> to the FEC in which they acknowledge the campaign received more than $741,000 in excessive contributions.<\/div>\n
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Because of the agreement, “the Commission has made no conclusions of findings that U.S. Senator Arlen Specter engaged in any wrongdoing in connection with the findings described in this Conciliation Agreement,” the signed document states. “In addition, the Commission has made no conclusions or findings that CFAS accepted contributions from prohibited sources, such as corporations, government contractors or foreign nationals in violation” of federal regulations.<\/div>\n
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An FEC general counsel report<\/a> from December stated that the FEC lawyers met in May with Specter, the senator’s attorney and Harmelin.<\/div>\n
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During that meeting, “Senator Specter advocated for no, or a substantially reduced, civil penalty on the ground that any violations in this case are technical in nature,” according to the report. “He and the CFAS treasurer also advised us that the illness of a key campaign staffer contributed to the failure to send the appropriate redesignation\/reattribution notifications to contributors.”<\/div>\n
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It’s not uncommon for political contributors to give candidates more than the legal limit, which in 2004 was $2,000 per election for an individual and $5,000 for a PAC. But the campaigns receiving the donations are legally obligated to keep track of excessive donations and refund amounts above the election cycle’s maximum level.<\/div>\n
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A phone call and e-mail by Capital Eye<\/a><\/i> to Specter’s campaign seeking comment weren’t immediately returned Thursday evening.<\/div>\n
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Rep. Joseph Sestak<\/a> (D-Pa.) is challenging<\/a> Specter this May in a Democratic primary, the result of which is anything but certain<\/a>.<\/div>\n
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The winner will likely face former Rep. Pat Toomey<\/a>, a Republican who narrowly lost to Specter in a 2004 Republican U.S. Senate seat primary. Toomey vacated his House seat in 2005, later serving as president of the Club for Growth<\/a>, a conservative Washington, D.C.-based think tank.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican-turned-Democrat facing a contentious re-election bid, will do so with less campaign cash after the Federal Election Commission fined him for accepting “excessive contributions from individuals and political committees.” The FEC decision, announced Thursday, names both Specter’s campaign committee and former committee treasurer, Stephen Harmelin, as respondents in the case. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3994,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-280229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3994"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280229\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}