{"id":8537,"date":"2017-09-18T07:00:17","date_gmt":"2017-09-18T11:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=8537"},"modified":"2017-09-17T23:29:03","modified_gmt":"2017-09-18T03:29:03","slug":"at-large-candidates-proposal-breaks-campaign-finance-laws","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=8537","title":{"rendered":"At-Large Candidate\u2019s Proposal Breaks Campaign Finance Laws"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

Council At-Large candidate Brandy Brooks, who is participating in MoCo\u2019s public financing system, would like to help natural disaster victims.\u00a0 That\u2019s a laudable goal.\u00a0 But she is proposing to spend campaign contributions to do so.\u00a0 The problem is that\u2019s illegal under state and county campaign finance laws.<\/p>\n

On her website<\/a>\u00a0and on Facebook<\/a>, Brooks promotes an initiative that she calls \u201cPower 100,\u201d in which she invites 100 contributors to donate a combined $2,500 to her campaign, half of which would be paid out to a number of charities helping natural disaster victims. \u00a0The charities include organizations helping victims of Hurricane Harvey, Hurricane Irma, a mudslide in Sierra Leone and floods in South Asia.<\/p>\n

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Brooks supporter Ed Fischman went a step further in a posting on the Our Revolution in Montgomery County Facebook page<\/a>, asserting that public matching funds would be used for disaster relief.\u00a0 To be fair, it\u2019s unclear whether Fischman speaks for Brooks and Brooks has not yet qualified for public matching funds.<\/p>\n

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State and county campaign finance laws prohibit these kinds of expenditures.\u00a0 According to the State Board of Elections\u2019 Summary Guide<\/a>, there must be a nexus between campaign account expenditures and the promotion of a candidate\u2019s campaign for those expenditures to be legal.\u00a0 The guide specifically addresses charitable contributions, stating:<\/p>\n

Generally, campaign funds may not<\/u> be used solely for charitable purposes. Maryland law requires campaign funds to be used for the purpose of supporting or opposing a candidate, question, or political committee. Furthermore, it is important to keep in mind that contributors give to campaign committees for one important reason \u2013 they want to support the committee\u2019s candidate, question, or political party. When campaign funds are spent for a non-campaign related purpose, it frustrates the intent of the contributor.<\/p>\n

However, there are instances when a charitable donation is permissible because it is for a campaign purpose. For example, a candidate may permissibly use campaign funds to attend a charitable event since attending the event increases the candidate\u2019s visibility and allows the candidate to network with potential voters and donors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u0e07 13-247 of state election law does allow certain kinds of charitable contributions to be made by accounts that are closing and liquidating their assets, a case that clearly does not apply to Brooks.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Montgomery County\u2019s public campaign financing law<\/a> states, \u201cA participating candidate may only use the eligible contributions and the matching public contribution for a primary or general election for expenses incurred for the election.\u201d\u00a0 This statement is repeated in the county\u2019s summary of the law<\/a>.\u00a0 No one could construe helping disaster relief victims as a primary or general election expense.\u00a0 It\u2019s noteworthy that the county\u2019s language applies not just to public funds but also to individual contributions made under the public financing program.<\/p>\n

Your author really hated to write this blog post but it had to be done.\u00a0 Generally speaking, when we have examined campaign finance issues in the past, we have sometimes seen behavior that may not be ethical but is legal.\u00a0 This case is the opposite: what Brooks is doing comes from the best of intentions but does not comply with the law.\u00a0 Brooks is free to discuss the plight of disaster victims all she wants.\u00a0 She could also organize a private fundraiser for victims separate from her campaign account.\u00a0 But if she goes ahead and uses her campaign funds for disaster relief contributions, she will risk sanctions from the state, the county or both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. Council At-Large candidate Brandy Brooks, who is participating in MoCo\u2019s public financing system, would like to help natural disaster victims.\u00a0 That\u2019s a laudable goal.\u00a0 But she is proposing to spend campaign contributions to do so.\u00a0 The problem is that\u2019s illegal under state and county campaign finance laws. On her website\u00a0and on Facebook, … Continue reading At-Large Candidate\u2019s Proposal Breaks Campaign Finance Laws<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[151,138,209],"tags":[1545,2024,1541,1933,1908],"class_list":["post-8537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-campaign-finance","category-council-at-large","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-brandy-brooks","tag-campaign-finance","tag-council-at-large","tag-public-campaign-financing"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-2dH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8537"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8545,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8537\/revisions\/8545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}