She may just be a sophomore in Congress, but when it comes to violating ethics and campaign laws, Congresswoman Mia Love is an old pro. In 2015, she was forced to pay back taxpayers after she spent their money to fly to DC for the Washington Correspondents Dinner. Later that year, she had to pay back taxpayers after getting caught pocketing a reimbursement for a flight she never took. But even before she was in Congress, Mia Love believed the rules didn’t apply to her – she was caught using her mayoral email account for campaign purposes. And last year, she was caught again, potentially using tax payer dollars to fly to a campaign fundraiser at Disney World.
But her latest scandal takes the cake – as CNN reported on Monday, the FEC is investigating Love for improperly raising more than $1 million into her campaign for a primary challenge that never happened. The FEC notified the Love campaign in August of her violation, but the campaign only responded after being contacted by CNN last week. They later told CNN that they plan to re-designate less than half — $380,000 – of the money that was illegally raised, so that they can continue to use it in the general election (Love, as of the third quarter fundraising filing, is trailing Democrat Ben McAdams in cash on hand).
“It’s a big deal, it is a big deal,” said Ann Ravel, who served as FEC Commissioner under President Barack Obama. “If you’re raising primary funds and you have no primary, on its face, it does seem to be inappropriate and it’s a lot of money.”
“It’s a really important factual distinction that makes Mia Love’s claim on this primary money even weaker than Mike Lee’s claim on it,” Ryan said. “I’m realizing after reading their response, reading a little bit more about the Mike Lee matter, that this is a more definitive attempt by the Love committee to game the contribution limits. That’s what it strikes me as now.”
But if you thought Mia Love was finally admitting fault, you’d be wrong! Despite her attempts to hold on to this money, she cannot re-designate the funds because they fall outside the 60 window allotted for such a re-designation – meaning Mia Love must return this money to remain in compliance with the FEC. Perhaps she should’ve read the FEC’s letter more closely! In her campaign’s official, typo-riddled response, Love called the CNN reporters’ who uncovered her wrongdoing “national liberal reporters” working “to help Democrats take the House.” DCCC spokesperson Drew Godinich released the following statement:
“Congresswoman Mia Love has repeatedly shown us who she is – another typical DC political insider who believe that the rules don’t apply to her. Incredibly, illegally raising $1 million is just the latest scandal in Mia Love’s career of looking out for herself instead of for Utahns. But rather than take responsibility for her campaign’s wrongdoing, Mia Love took a page from Donald Trump’s playbook, with whom she votes 96% of the time, and attacked the reporters who worked to uncover her malfeasance. Mia Love should immediately return the $1 million she illegally raised and apologize to the people of Utah.”
Here’s what people are saying about Love’s $1 million scandal:
HEADLINE: Rep. Mia Love’s campaign admits to improperly raising primary election funds [CNN]
HEADLINE: Rep. Mia Love’s Campaign Gamed Primary Fundraising Laws, FEC Finds [Roll Call]
HEADLINE: $1M Love raised gets feds’ attention [Salt Lake Tribune]
HEADLINE: Love will relabel campaign funds [Deseret News]
HEADLINE: GOP congresswoman broke campaign finance law, but she wants to keep the money [ThinkProgress]
HEADLINE: Mia’s Money Matters: Love Campaign to Keep Contested Funds Amid Objection [Roll Call]
HEADLINE: Love refunding, re-designating campaign cash after warning [AP]
HEADLINE: Utah Rep. Love Admits to Improper Primary Fundraising [Wall Street Journal]
HEADLINE: FEC warns Mia Love’s campaign of improper campaign fundraising; Love refunding some of the money, but will keep most [Utah Policy]
KUTV: After FEC query, Love campaign will redesignate $370K, refund less than $10,000
FOX 13: Love Campaign admits finance mistake as election heats up; Fox 13’s Max Roth breaks down campaign finances
KUTV: FEC says Mia Love improperly raised $1 million in primary funds
ABC4: Love campaign violations could become the ‘issue’ of the campaign