Melissa Vine, a Democrat running in the June 4 primary in Iowa’s 3rd congressional district, and her former campaign manager Lou McDonald were each fined $500 by the Iowa Ethics and Campaign Disclosure Board on Thursday after the board’s investigation found the two made contributions to a state political action committee in other people’s names.
The board’s investigation, launched a week earlier, was into a complaint made by Iowa Unity Coalition, a progressive PAC. The complaint was over potential illegal contributions leading up to the PAC’s endorsement vote for Iowa’s 3rd congressional district race. Participants had to pay $20 to the coalition to vote for who the group would endorse in the race: Vine faces Lanon Baccam, a former U.S. Department of Agriculture official and Biden campaign staffer, in the June 4 primary.
Mitch Henry, chair of the coalition, said that the day of and day prior to the April 30 online endorsement vote, the PAC saw a sudden increase in membership, and that there were large quantities of votes submitted in a one-hour period — largely in support of Vine — during the 24-hour voting process.
Henry said that the activity was flagged as suspicious, and the Iowa Unity Coalition launched an audit of the votes the day after voting ended. The group audit found that 41 votes were submitted by people who were not members of the group, and 43 votes were submitted under names that were linked to the same address and credit card information, and who had email addresses linked to Vine’s campaign. Additionally, 125 people attempted to register for the Iowa Unity Coalition using ActBlue, largely from April 30 through May 1, and 76 registrations were flagged as fraudulent.
The board’s investigation found that McDonald, then Vine’s campaign manager, registered those people and attempted to participate in the endorsement vote using his personal credit card. The action violated state laws that ban individuals from making contributions or expenditures in the name of another person.
Vine informed the board that she was aware of the actions taken by McDonald, Zach Goodrich, executive director of the ethics board, said in the meeting. Vine fired McDonald earlier in May in relation to the PAC contributions, saying in a statement that McDonald “took actions that do not reflect our values, and he is no longer a part of our campaign.”
In statements to the board through attorneys, both Vine and McDonald said they were not aware the action violated Iowa’s campaign finance laws, believing they were purchasing “memberships” — a separate action from making contributions to the PAC.
Goodrich said that “intent” is not applicable to the board’s action of imposing penalties for breaking the law.
“Whether the campaign contributions were believed to be memberships or not, ultimately they were still campaign contributions,” he said.
If the case goes before a criminal court, the issue of whether the law was violated “knowingly” would become relevant. Henry has said he referred the issue to the Polk County Attorney’s Office and Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation. In addition to the state board action, there could be action from the Federal Election Commission, as federal law may have been violated by using congressional campaign money to make contributions on behalf of individuals to a PAC.
The state ethics board voted unanimously Thursday to impose the maximum $1,000 total penalty for the state law violation. But in an atypical procedure, that fine was split between McDonald and Vine.
“I will note that usually, in cases like these, we are dealing with a singular entity — the individuals who are still working on the campaign,” Goodrich said. “In this instance, following the conductive issue and where we are right now, there was a breakup and Mr. McDonald was terminated from his position. So, my recommendation gets to the point that we are not pinning this all on one entity or the other (and this) is a shared responsibility as far as the facts are concerned.”
Robin Opsahl covers the Iowa Legislature and politics for Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this story first appeared.
