FEC Fines Gerlach

The Federal Election Commission fined Rep. Jim Gerlach’s (R-Pa.) campaign account $120,000 for overstating the amount of money he raised in 2004 after reaching a voluntary agreement with the campaign, Politico's Josh Kraushaar reports.

Gerlach’s FEC report at the end of 2004 reported he raised over $2.5 million in a two-month period.  In actuality, he only raised $18,000 – and the error went undetected for several months.  The agreement acknowledges that the mistakes were unintentional and were due to a “clerical computing error.”

But because of the massive disparity, the FEC formula for fines determined that Gerlach would owe $120,000 – a substantive sum.

“I wanted to fight this fine, especially considering the Commission stated in this agreement that the errors were neither ‘knowing’ nor ‘willful.’ However, it simply isn’t worth the time it would take away from my job as a Congressman to argue these points any further with the Commission,” said Gerlach in a statement. “At the end of the day, the campaign did make clerical errors. It is my campaign and I accept responsibility.”

Since the misfiling, the Gerlach campaign has hired a new treasurer, Mike DeHaven, and has made some minor administrative changes, at the recommendation of the FEC, on reporting finance activity.

The complaints were initiated by Gerlach’s 2004 and 2006 Democratic challenger Lois Murphy, who first filed a complaint with the FEC in November 2005.