Ethics complaints filed against Missouri treasurer candidates

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The Republican and Democratic candidates for state treasurer were both accused in ethics complaints filed Wednesday of making mistakes in their campaign finance reports.

Brad Lager, a Republican state senator from Savannah, is accused of improperly reporting his campaign's credit card purchases. And Clint Zweifel, a Democratic state House member from Florissant, is accused of omitting required information from campaign donors and accepting a donation that was $50 over the state fundraising limit.

The complaint against Lager was filed by Ken Franklin, executive director of the Missouri Democratic Party. Mark Siettmann, who works for a political consulting company hired by Lager's campaign, filed the complaint against Zweifel.

Both parties announced the complaints against their nominees' opponents. The Missouri Ethics Commission can neither confirm nor deny when it receives complaints.

The complaint against Zweifel's campaign identifies four contributors whose occupations are not listed in Zweifel's campaign report as required and two contributors whose names were not included.

Zweifel's campaign responded that the contributions not attributed to a specific person are donations from a group and are properly recorded. It also reported that the campaign correctly stated that it had requested occupation information from one of the donors.

Campaign manager Patrick Lynn said that the excess $50 would be refunded and that the campaign should have stated it was requesting occupation information from the other three individual donors.

The Democrats' complaint accuses Lager of reporting only the total amounts of campaign credit card spending without listing individual purchases. The party said it found five examples going back to February where Lager's campaign finance reports only included credit card expenses without detailing specifically what was purchased.

In all five examples, Lager's campaign gave at least a broad explanation for what was bought using the campaign credit card. For example, the campaign reported paying a credit card bill of $345.88 on Feb. 1 for "travel, meals & hotels."

In two of the five cases cited by Democrats, Lager's campaign did list specifically in an addendum how much was spent using a campaign credit card for expenditures such as hotel bills or meals. In two other instances, Lager's campaign included an itemization in the addendum but the figures didn't match the total reported credit card spending. And in one example, there was no breakdown of credit card spending.

Later Wednesday, Lager's campaign filed updated finance reports that included itemized credit card spending.

Campaign manager Bryan Sanders called the Democrats' complaint "the hallmarks of a candidate behind in the polls and running a losing campaign."

"Instead of talking about his dismal record and the fact that he can't discuss ever meeting a payroll, balancing a budget or showing leadership on fiscal issues, he now wants to know whether Brad Lager stayed in a Holiday Inn Express or the Drury Inn," Sanders said.

Lynn said the Democrats' complaint against Lager is about a lack of transparency while the one against Zweifel is about a "mistype."

"Lager speaks a lot about transparency in government, but how can we trust him to be transparent with state finances if he can't be transparent with his campaign?" Lynn said.

Candidate campaigns are required to report expenditures of more than $100, with the date, amount and purpose for the purchase. All payments to campaign workers also must be itemized.

Last year, the Ethics Commission issued an advisory opinion stating that "committees are advised to list the required details of the actual expenditure made, (as opposed to payment to a credit card company.)"

Gov. Matt Blunt's campaign had requested the advisory opinion because Attorney General Jay Nixon's gubernatorial campaign had not been itemizing its credit card spending.

The ethics opinion means that campaigns must treat credit card bills as they would cash expenditures. So if a hypothetical credit card bill for $200 included a $110 hotel charge and several other, smaller amounts, the hotel charge would have to be itemized while the other items would not.