CT elections enforcement dismisses decade old complaint against Ted Kennedy Jr. What to know.

Yahoo

2 days ago

More than a decade after his opponent accused then state Senate candidate Edward M. Kennedy Jr. of using a politically engineered loophole to bypass campaign spending limits, the State Elections Enforcement Commission has reached a not unexpected decision: Complaint dismissed.
The dismissal, in a case arising from a 2014 Senate campaign in Madison, removes an irritant for Kennedy, who has since walked away from Connecticut electoral politics. But it leaves unresolved questions about the loophole that was created by a murky legislative amendment and allows candidates campaigning with taxpayer money to exceed spending limits intended to keep special interest money out of elections.
The SEEC decision, recently released by the commission, observes that 'justice delayed is justice denied,' but doesn't explain what the commission called its 'inexcuseable,'11-year delay in resolving the complaint.
And in its written 'Findings and Conclusions,' the commission acknowledges it is dismissing the complaint in spite of 'significant' evidence that Kennedy violated the spirit of the state campaign finance reforms, known as the Citizen Election Program or CEP, by raising money for a state Democratic party committee with the understanding that the money would be transferred back to his campaign, in excess of spending limits.
'There is significant, though not uncontroverted, evidence that the candidate raised the funds for the party committee with the express understanding that the funds raised would be spent on his campaign,' the commission concluded. 'The funds raised by the candidate for the party committee were tracked and spent by the candidate's committee. In short, the evidence suggests that the candidate bypassed the CEP limits by doing indirectly what he could not do directly.'
Charles Urso, a former FBI agent who was assigned to investigate the Kennedy complaint while working for the SEEC, was critical of the decision, both for the delay and its conclusion. Urso said the commission's own findings support the argument that Kennedy arranged to raise money for the state committee with the understanding that the money would be 'earmarked' for his campaign.
'As the initial investigator on this matter — I retired before it concluded — I am confused by the conclusion,' Urso said. 'If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and is yellow, it is earmarking. It made a mockery of the CEP and the fallout continues. With many of the safeguards from the origination of the program being eliminated or watered down it is time to end this costly experiment.'
In 2014, Kennedy, a Democrat, was running against Madison Selectman Bruce Wilson, a Republican. Both applied for public financing and signed contracts promising to limit spending to grants of about $95,000 in taxpayer funds they qualified for under the Citizen Election Program.
Campaign records show that Kennedy and the state Democratic Party ended up spending almost four times that much on his campaign, using the loophole opened by the abstruse amendment pushed through the Legislature the year before. Political observers said, then and now, that the amendment was designed to help former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who was worried about being out-spent by a privately financed opponent in his 2014 campaign.
By the time the votes were counted in November 2014, the election commission reported in its Findings and Conclusions released late Wednesday that 'individuals associated with' Kennedy contributed $305,000 to the Democratic State Central Committee. Over the same period, the commission reported that the state committee paid $286,755 to cover the costs of the Kennedy campaign's 'organization expenditures.'
Before campaign finance law was changed by the 2013 amendment, payments from outside committees for campaign 'organization expenditures' were limited to $10,000.
Wilson, outspent by a margin of nearly 4-1, recalls driving himself and, while lugging posters and signs to campaign events, watching Kennedy arrive with a retinue of staffers and occasionally a consultant. After Kennedy won the race, Wilson's campaign manager, former Madison First Selectman Tom Banisch, filed the complaint with the commission, which eventually opened related investigations of both Kennedy and Malloy.
When the investigation began, state Democrats challenged commission subpoenas for campaign records, attracting the interest of federal authorities. Among other things, FBI agents and federal prosecutors spent 15 months analyzing half a million emails in an effort to determine whether fund transfers that pushed spending over legal limits amounted to fraud on the public campaign finance system.
In 2018, the justice department shut down its inquiry, conceding that the 2013 amendment made the find transfers legal.
Even though the FBI was ordered to stand down, election reformers such as former state Comptroller Kevin Lembo, a Democrat, worried the that the amendment and resulting loophole had turned the Citizen Election Program, once thought to be among the country's most vigorous campaign reform packages, into a toothless means of delivering tax payer dollars to politicians.
'The flagship example of how this change defies the spirit of Connecticut's prior campaign finance reform is Ted Kennedy Jr.'s campaign for State Senate back in 2014,' the staff of the Comptroller's office wrote in a 2017 report.
The 11-page statement of Findings and Conclusions the elections enforcement commission released Wednesday gives examples of exchanges of tactics and money between the Kennedy campaign and the Democratic State Central Committee, before concluding the practices didn't arise to a violation.
At least seven months before the election, the commission said the Kennedy campaign was speaking with the Democratic State Central Committee about 'ways that the state central committee could assist the candidate's campaign.' As a result, it said the two 'collaborated on both contributions and expenditures to benefit the candidate's campaign,' according to the findings.
The commission findings report that Kennedy's campaign manager, on loan from a major labor union, spoke regularly with the Democratic State Central Committee about paying for Kennedy campaign expenses and at one point 'simply directed' a senior state party officer 'to add two individuals the party committee's payroll to work solely on behalf of the candidate's committee.'
In an email on the subject, the Kennedy campaign manager wrote to a senior DSCC staffer: 'Two employees need to be put on payroll for the state party …I don't know how your pay period's run, but both are to be paid the equivalent of $800 per week. We also want to reimburse for mileage at the standard State party rate.'
One of the two men was later interviewed by the elections enforcement commission, which reported in its findings that he said he was hired by Kennedy, but paid by the state party. Within two months of being hired, he was working exclusively on fundraising for the DSCC.
One example of area of cooperation was a 'luncheon reception' to 'honor' Kennedy hosted by two well-known Pennsylvania politicians, former Gov. Ed Rendell and former Judge Joseph Rocks. The two asked invitees in a letter 'to consider contributing $500, $1,000 or $1,500 to aid his cause' and closed by expressing the hope that guests 'can join us in supporting Ted Kennedy Jr.'
'In the cover letter and on the face of the actual invitation, there was no mention that the contributions would be going to the DSCC,' according to the elections commission Findings and Conclusions. 'The contribution form, which contributors were directed to return to Rocks, was titled 'Ted Kennedy Jr. for Connecticut State Senator.' In smaller type, there was language noting that checks should be made payable to DSCC and that this was a 'fundraising event for the Democratic Party of Connecticut.''
The elections enforcement commission reported in its findings that DSCC records show that Kennedy, or those working on his behalf, solicited about $308,000 from 188 donors for the state party.
'Throughout the course of the 2014 election cycle, the candidate raised money on behalf of the DSCC, beginning in April and continuing through the election in November,' according to the commission Findings and Conclusions. 'The amount of money that the candidate raised tracks almost directly with the organization expenditures that the committee made on his behalf. Although the individuals representing both the candidate committee and the party committee denied that there was a quid pro quo arrangement regarding 'contributions raised and money spent,' a strong correlation to that effect exists.'
The elections commission said in its findings that the facts of the Kennedy case present a 'core' legal issue: Whether candidates running taxpayer funded campaigns can solicit money for a state party, knowing that the funds will be tracked and returned to the candidate. It said both the Kennedy campaign and the Democratic State Central Committed deny that happened and insist that any fund transfers were 'entirely legal.'
'Nonetheless, the factual ambiguity and legal complexity of the issues raised in this matter meant that this matter has remained unresolved for an inexcusably extended period,' the commission said in its findings. 'Moreover, the commission takes judicial notice that the candidate served only one term in the General Assembly and has not been in elected office since 2016, or nine years ago.
'And finally because this case was a case of first impression, the facts are contested, there has been an unreasonably long delay in the resolution of this matter, the commission has decided that justice requires that this case be dismissed without further action.'
The commission voted to approve its decision Wednesday morning. Wilson and Banisch said they were not notified. Both men said that in response to their repeated inquiries to the commission about the status of the complaint over the last decade, they were told simply that it was under investigation.
'It really seems like it was a matter of expedience for them to get rid of the case rather than have to do anything about it,' said Banisch, who moved to South Carolina years ago. 'The fact of the matter is that Ted Kennedy screwed Bruce Wilson's campaign and the state of Connecticut.'
Kennedy could not be reached and a staffer at the commission said no one was available to discuss the decision. Kennedy has previously said repeatedly that his 2014 campaign did nothing wrong.