The State Election Enforcement Commission (SEEC) voted to deny a petition brought on behalf of Senate Democrats seeking to limit how recovered money stolen from the Senate Republican Leadership Committee (SRLC) political action committee (PAC) by Michael Cronin can be spent.
The SEEC voted unanimously to adopt a draft recommendation denying a request to disallow the SLRC to spend roughly $160,000 in funds previously stolen by Cronin and recovered through restitution ordered by the courts. The commission found it did not have any legal basis to take the actions sought by Senate Democrats.
In August, a lawyer representing the Senate Democratic Caucus filed a petition with the SEEC seeking a declaratory ruling on whether a $160,000 lump sum payment transferred from the SLRC to the Senate Republican Victory Committee (SRVC) should be subject to a campaign finance law in effect between 2014 and 2018 that prohibited aggregate expenditures for candidates participating in the Citizens’ Election Program.
That prohibition has since been removed, but the petition asked SEEC to clarify whether it should limit the SRVC’s ability to spend money recovered from Cronin, who was the treasurer of the SLRC between 2007 and 2018 and who stole roughly $267,800 during that period, during the current election cycle. SEEC ordered a cease-and-desist to the SLRC after the theft was reported and authorized both the creation of the SRVC as a successor committee and the transfer of remaining funds.
The petition also asked SEEC to clarify whether the SRVC can spend the roughly $160,000 that remains of the money stolen by Cronin in one election cycle, arguing that allowing Republicans to spend the money in one shot “would be so unfair and injurious to our fair electoral process that it cannot be allowed to occur.”
The SEEC also solicited public comments prior to its September 17 meeting. It received five comments, all but one of which were from Republicans.
Comments submitted by the SRVC argued the SEEC does not have jurisdiction to limit their ability to spend the money. They also noted that the SEEC, which had previously allowed the transfer of the funds from the SRLC to the SRVC had not put any limits on expenditure, despite the removal of the prohibition on aggregation.
The Senate Republican Campaign Campaign Committee and the Senate Republican Majority Committee both also asked to adopt the SRVC’s comments on their own and to be granted intervenor status. The SEEC also voted to unanimously adopt these requests at its September 18 meeting.
Comment from former Republican Senate Leader Len Fasano pushed back on the petition’s assertion that allowing Republicans to spend the money in one election cycle was unfair, arguing that the SLRC was a victim and limiting their ability to spend the recovered funds would further victimize the PAC.
“After the 2016 election, the State Senate was tied 18 to 18. Because of this, the 2018 cycle was critical to the [SRLC] because of our efforts to capture the majority for the first time since the mid-1990s. As it turns out, it was in the 2018 election year when Mr. Cronin admitted to the most aggressive embezzlement from the PAC, causing significant harm to our ability to fund elections. In the 2018 election cycle, the [SLRC] spent virtually all the money it had on hand, and because of the embezzlement, we lost the benefit of having an additional $160,000 more to spend on those tight races that we ultimately lost by just a few votes. Certain caucuses benefited significantly from the fact that we had $160,000 less to spend in 2018 than we should have. They won those tight races as they had access to all their funds. For anyone to raise “equity” now after they won these races is misplaced at best. The [SLRC] would be victimized twice if the Commission were to grant this request.” Fasano wrote.
Comments submitted on behalf of the Connecticut Democratic State Central Committee argued that donors whose contributions to the SLRC were stolen should be notified that restitution had been made so they could request a refund. They further argued that current donors to the SRVC and former donors to the SLRC are not necessarily the same.
They also asked the SEEC to consider “whether there are donors who may have given the maximum contribution possible to the SLRC (even reupping their contribution following the perpetration of the fraud) and/or who have already maxed out this year to SRVC, and whose funds are NOW being recouped in the restitution payment, which effectively results in an excess contribution.”
The comments submitted on behalf of Democrats pointed to SRVC’s fundraising history, which they stated does not approach the $160,000 lump sum in a single year, and argued that “the interests of equity and justice would suggest that it is unfair for SRVC to now enjoy a windfall of cash into their campaign coffers simply because of a lump sum restitution payment when they never would have (or arguably never could have) raised such an impressive haul of funds in a single election cycle, much less within a year alone.”
But the SEEC did not find these arguments persuasive. Following an executive session in which the petition was discussed, attorney Shannon Kief asked the commission to adopt a draft declaratory ruling denying the petition. She noted that the commission could find no precedent from the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) limiting the spending of funds received through restitution and could find no reason to depart from that precedent. She further noted that any limitation on the “equitable remedy of restitution” would fall under the jurisdiction of the courts.
Kief further stated that SEEC could find “no support in the law” for the petition’s request that the previous ban on aggregate expenditures be applied now and stated that the petition’s request to “level the playing field” was also not something SEEC has permission to do. She noted that precedent from the Supreme Court and the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has been clear on this matter.
The commission voted unanimously to adopt the draft declaration denying the petition.
Sen. Minority Leader Stephen Harding issued the following statement:
“Six years ago, Senate Republicans were the victims of a crime that saw over $250,000 stolen from our political committee coffers at a time when we were threatening to take a majority. Since then, this office has worked hand-in-hand with the courts, the Division of Criminal Justice and the State Elections Enforcement Commission (SEEC) to come to an agreement on the process by which any funds recovered from Mr. Cronin as a result of his criminal settlement would be returned to us. That understanding was memorialized by SEEC on May 1st of this year when they dismissed the civil case against Cronin, which allowed a portion of the funds he paid in restitution to flow back to our committees. The Senate Democrats failed to raise any concerns at that time. Instead, they waited until now to launch this blatantly political attempt to restrict our use of those funds in an effort to revictimize Senate Republicans. We appreciate that the Commission has honored the language of their own May 1, 2024 Order, as we have.”
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