State fines Oregon candidate
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 11:26 AM PST
SALEM (AP) — A congressional candidate in Oregon has been fined $2,250 for unlawfully converting campaign money to personal use.
The Oregon Elections Division rejected Springfield Mayor Sid Leiken’s claim that he transferred $2,000 from his mayoral campaign fund to his consulting firm as reimbursement for a public opinion poll that Leiken said he asked his mother to conduct.
Division spokesman Don Hamilton said elections officials also found that Leiken failed to keep campaign finance records as required by law.
He was not fined for that offense because it was his first such violation.
The fine includes the amount of the unlawful transaction, along with a $250 civil penalty.
Leiken is seeking the Republican nomination to run for U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio’s 4th congressional district seat. A statement released by Leiken’s campaign said ‘‘the substance of the complaint was addressed and corrected a long time ago ... Now that the Secretary of State’s Office has resolved its issues I am focused on jobs.’’
Leiken’s campaign finances have been an issue since The Register-Guard newspaper reported in May that his mayoral campaign committee paid $2,000 to the mayor’s consulting firm, SWL Consulting.
State election law prohibits candidates from personally profiting from a political race.
The mayor said it was an innocent transaction in which his campaign was reimbursing his consulting firm for $2,000 it had spent for a survey of public opinion on Springfield gas taxes.
Leiken later said the survey was conducted by P&G Marketing and Research, a firm owned by his mother.
Glenda Leiken is a real estate agent with no experience in public opinion polling and whose marketing and research firm was not registered with the state.
Hamilton said there is no evidence that Leiken’s firm ever paid his mother for polling, and Leiken and his mother couldn’t provide evidence a poll was ever conducted.
‘‘The trail of transactions among family members, combined with a lack of evidence that a poll was conducted, has led to the conclusion that the funds were converted to personal use,’’ according to an Elections Division report released Monday.
Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com
