WASHINGTON — Ald. Pat Dowell’s defunct congressional committee has been fined for several federal election law violations committed during her failed 2022 bid for the 1st District congressional seat, according to Federal Election Commission investigation documents.
Dowell’s congressional campaign failed to report in-kind political contributions, didn’t properly disclose campaign spending and illegally received and spent money from her previously abandoned Illinois secretary of state campaign committee, the bipartisan FEC’s four commissioners unanimously ruled.
Dowell (3rd) agreed to pay a $7,000 fine and acknowledged that her congressional committee violated several portions of the Federal Election Campaign Act, FEC documents show. She also agreed to “cease and desist from violating” the law in the future.
Dowell on Friday issued a statement saying that during her campaign for Congress, “errors occurred because my campaign team did not effectively manage the regulatory differences between federal, state, and municipal campaigns, each of which has its own distinct rules. I deeply regret these errors and take full responsibility for them. We have been working with the FEC to fully understand the issues and to rectify them. The Pat Dowell for Congress committee and the FEC have reached a mutual agreement to settle the matter… I now consider this matter closed.”
The dispute began nearly three years ago, when Chicago resident Terrance Whitehead filed a complaint against Dowell with the FEC.
Whitehead accused Dowell and her congressional committee of violating federal election law by using $169,024 in state-level campaign cash to fund expenses for her federal-level campaign — something federal election law prohibits.
Expenses cited included consulting fees, media relations services, staff payments, legal fees, rent, printing and office supplies.
In June 2022, Dowell wrote the FEC to “respectfully request that no action be taken against me” and that “a dismissal would be appropriate because the seriousness of the alleged conduct is not sufficient to justify the likely cost of an investigation.” She attributed the financial foul-up to accounting mistakes that her staff quickly remedied.
But the FEC proceeded with its investigation, and the agency’s general counsel’s office recommended that the full commission rule that Dowell violated federal election laws.
The FEC general counsel found that Dowell used state committee money to pay 66 campaign workers on June 28, 2022 — the day of Dowell’s Democratic congressional primary, which she lost to Illinois Democrat Jonathan Jackson, who later won the general election and now represents the First District.
This isn’t the first time Dowell’s 2022 congressional committee has been fined by federal regulators.
In November, the FEC fined the committee $10,000 for a variety of election law violations, including “knowingly accepting excessive contributions” in the tens of thousands of dollars and failing to “remedy” them.
Dowell’s case should serve as a warning to congressional candidates that they “need to exercise maximum accounting hygiene” when running a campaign, said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, director of government affairs for the nonpartisan Project on Government Oversight.
“The laws really aren’t that hard, and you can act appropriately, ethically and within the law if you have competent people around you and follow the rules,” Hedtler-Gaudette said.
Dave Levinthal is a freelance writer.