CLEVELAND, Ohio – The Ohio Elections Commission found a political action committee formerly controlled by Cleveland City Council President and then-mayoral candidate Kevin Kelley violated campaign finance laws in its support of Ward 12 Councilman Anthony Brancatelli’s unsuccessful re-election bid.
The OEC, in a Dec. 2 hearing, found that the Council Leadership Fund failed to include a disclaimer on PAC-funded pro-Brancatelli campaign literature. The disclaimer should’ve stated that the materials were not authorized by Brancatelli or his campaign, Executive Director Philip Richter told The Plain Dealer and cleveland.com. The penalty was a $50 fine, Richter said.
The decades-old Council Leadership Fund, now controlled by Council President-elect Blaine Griffin, is generally used as a way to support incumbent council members in their bids for re-election.
The PAC, in a filing to the OEC written by Columbus attorney N. Zachary West, admitted that it had failed to include the proper disclaimer on three mailers sent to Ward 12 residents, though West stated the PAC had not intended to run afoul of the law by omitting them.
“Since discovering its error, the Fund has retained compliance counsel and is implementing procedures to ensure future communications fully comply with the law,” the filing stated.
The OEC tossed out other allegations of rule-breaking made against Brancatelli and the PAC by Brancatelli’s challenger in the November election, Councilwoman-elect Rebecca Maurer.
Maurer, in a September complaint to the OEC, had accused the PAC and Brancatelli’s campaign of improperly coordinating on mailers and yard signs that the PAC had claimed as “independent expenditures.” She also accused the PAC of potentially violating a $3,000-limit for contributions to Brancatelli’s campaign, imposed by city ordinance.
Brancatelli denied coordinating with the PAC on any mailers and yard signs, according to his response to Maurer’s complaint, submitted to the OEC. Brancatelli had argued the PAC “got a lot of information off of essentially publicly available materials,” Richter said.
The PAC also denied coordination. Its filing stated that Maurer’s original complaint was “inherently contradictory, lack[s] evidentiary support, and include[s] admissions that she can’t even be certain of basic facts.”
Because there “wasn’t a lot of evidence to sufficiently support that there may have been coordination,” and both the PAC and Brancatelli denied coordination, Richter recommended the commission dismiss the rest of Maurer’s complaint.
The OEC, a state body, did not consider Maurer’s allegations of excessive contributions from the PAC because those guidelines are imposed by the city and are not state law, Richter said. The OEC has no jurisdiction over such violations, he said.
Kelley told cleveland.com that the relatively small fine, in his view, indicates the failure to include a proper disclaimer was not a “severe” violation of the law, though he acknowledged the disclaimers are important to include on campaign materials.
