Tuesday, June 30, 2009

GAB To Sue Eight Legislative Candidates For Not Filing Campaign Reports

A state agency plans to sue four legislators and four unsuccessful legislative candidates claiming they have not filed year-end 2008 campaign finance reports due five months ago.

The four legislators are incumbent Democratic Representatives Tamara Grigsby, Annette Williams and Christine Sinicki and Republican Representative Scott Newcomer. The four others, who lost in the 2008 primary or general elections, were Republicans Jess Kufahl, David Nickel and Jason LaSage and Democrat Perry Duman.

Campaign finance reports for these and 14 other candidates were the subject of a first-ever open records request asking the Government Accountability Board to make the records - due February 2 - available to the public or investigate the candidates for breaking state campaign finance laws.

The availability and accuracy of campaign finance reports for dozens of 2008 legislative candidates have been a problem for months because of the board's new electronic filing system implemented last fall. Reports generated by the system have been fraught with problems that include incorrect fundraising and spending totals, wrongly identified expenditures, and contributions and expenditures listed multiple times.

1 comment:

Marcus Aurelius said...

It is bound to happen with a new computer system at least problems and questions about reports that were filed. Non-filers have different issues.