Dean Heller puts old Federal Election Commission fine to rest
CARSON CITY — A near decade-old campaign finance transgression from Dean Heller’s 2012 U.S. Senate run has come back on the current Republican candidate for governor, with his Senate campaign paying $37,500 to the Federal Election Commission in a ruling finalized last month.
Heller’s Senate campaign committee has paid the amount in full, according to a spokesman. It covers $27,500 in contributions a company illegally made to the campaign through its executives plus a $10,000 fine for the committee not making the payment when it was first ordered four years ago.
The enforcement action is not related to Heller’s current race for governor.
The FEC earlier found that the company, Cancer Treatment Centers of America, paid bonuses to employees in 2012 who then made campaign donations to various candidates, including Heller. Companies and individuals are barred under federal law from making donations for or through a third party and political campaign committees are barred from knowingly accepting such funds.
The FEC in 2017 assessed a $288,000 fine against the company and ordered candidates who received prohibited contributions to pay them to the government within 30 days.
The Heller committee didn’t make the payment and in June 2018 the Nevada State Democratic Party filed a complaint with the FEC. In an FEC case summary, Heller’s committee acknowledged receiving the contributions but said it did not learn they were made illegally until the FEC’s 2017 enforcement action, five years after the contributions were made.
The committee argued it was not required to disgorge, or turn over, to the government the prohibited contributions “because they were during a previous election cycle, were expended during that election cycle, and are no longer specifically available to disgorge.”
FEC lawyers found the Heller committee’s argument and interpretation of campaign finance law “misplaced,” and said under law the committee was liable for the payment regardless of how much time had passed or whether it had cash on hand to pay.
A review of the committee’s financial disclosures “shows that it had, at the time it was put on notice in August 2017, and currently has, more than sufficient funds to disgorge the $27,500 in prohibited corporate contributions,” FEC lawyers wrote.
The FEC’s decision was sent to state Democrats in mid-October and will be filed publicly later this month. The $27,500 FEC payment appears in Heller’s Senate committee’s October financial disclosure. Jack Finn, a spokesman for Heller’s governor campaign, said Wednesday the $10,000 fine has also been paid and the payment would appear in the committee’s next filing.
Leadership of state Democrats has changed hands since the complaint was filed in 2018. In a statement, Judith Whitmer, the current party chair, said Heller’s committee chose to “willfully ignore” the law, resulting in the additional $10,000 fine.
“This behavior is everything people hate about politics: deception, greed, and a pay-to-play mentality that only benefits the people at the top,” Whitmer said.
Contact Capital Bureau reporter Bill Dentzer at bdentzer@reviewjournal.com. Follow @DentzerNews on Twitter.
FEC Conciliation agreement by Las Vegas Review-Journal on Scribd