Published on Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (http://www.citizensforethics.org)
FEC fines Senator Mel Martinez for violations outlined by CREW's 2007 FEC complaint, but the FEC failed to mention CREW
By crew
Created 29 Oct 2008 - 10:44am
In May of 2007, CREW filed an FEC complaint [0] against Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) alleging multiple egregious violations of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) and FEC regulations:
The complaint is based primarily upon the Commission’s recent audit on April 17, 2007 of Martinez for Senate, which revealed that the campaign committee failed to comply with the most basic disclosure provisions of FECA and FEC regulations. During the course of the ten-month campaign, Martinez for Senate received no fewer than three written warnings from the Commission.
Today, we learned that the FEC fined Martinez $99,000 for the same violations mentioned in CREW's complaint -- without referencing or mentioning CREW's FEC complaint. We wrote a letter to the FEC, which can be found here. [0]
More on the FEC action against Martinez from the Orlando Sentinel [1]:
Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida has agreed to pay $99,000 in fines for breaking several federal election laws -- including accepting $313,000 in excessive contributions -- during his 2004 campaign, according to newly-released records [2].
The penalty ends years of investigation of the Republican senator by the Federal Election Commission, which announced several violations last year after an audit of his campaign. His other violations include not filing information about big donors about two-dozen times and improperly reporting proceeds from joint fundraisers he held with other political committees -- to a tune of almost $320,000.
He’ll also have to pay $11,500 to the U.S. Treasury for “unresolved excessive contributions,” which Martinez was not able to return in what the FEC calls “a reasonable amount of time.”
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