State by State

11 Jun 2008 // Tennessee

A Washington ethics watchdog group on Wednesday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s campaign regarding the Tennessee Republican’s self-admitted FEC reporting errors.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) joined one of Blackburn’s constituents, Germantown resident Barbara Kaye Ginsberg, in filing the complaint against Marsha Blackburn for Congress and the committee’s treasurer, Tea Hoffman.

In April, Blackburn announced that an audit she initiated of all her campaign finance records resulted in her re-filing all 32 periodic reports she has made to the FEC since she first ran for Congress in 2002.

Blackburn said that more than $440,000 in campaign donations and disbursements had not been reported or were misreported, including $102,044 in unreported contributions, $286,278 in unreported spending — including $63,000 for political advertising and $18,821 to her daughter, Mary Morgan Ketchel, and her son-in-law, Paul, for their company, Political Concepts — and an additional $52,025 in accounting errors in other expenditures.

Blackburn said she had been in contact with FEC over the reporting problems and highlighted her proactive role in addressing the problems.

But CREW’s complaint — in addition to arguing that Blackburn violated campaign laws — also alleges that campaign officials may have committed perjury by signing a statement saying all information provided to the FEC to resolve a 2006 investigation — which resulted in a $1,500 fine — failed to report the contribution from Friends of Duke Cunningham, then under investigation by federal authorities.

“Given the Blackburn campaign committee’s longstanding pattern of filing inaccurate FEC reports and the large amounts of money involved, the FEC should step in, investigate the committee and sanction it appropriately,” CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said in a statement. “In addition, if it turns out that the campaign committee deliberately hid the Cunningham contribution when negotiating a settlement with the FEC, the Department of Justice should consider whether a perjury prosecution is appropriate.”

Blackburn’s primary opponent, former State Sen. Tom Leatherwood, has been using Blackburn’s campaign disclosure problems and her campaign’s employment of family members as his main talking points against her.