FEC imposes $6.2 million in fines in 2006, a record

WASHINGTON (AP) _ The Federal Election Commission more than doubled its civil penalties in 2006, imposing $6.2 million in fines for campaign-law violations. <br/><br/>More than half _ $3.8 million _ came

Thursday, December 28th 2006, 4:20 pm

By: News On 6

WASHINGTON (AP) _ The Federal Election Commission more than doubled its civil penalties in 2006, imposing $6.2 million in fines for campaign-law violations.

More than half _ $3.8 million _ came from penalties against Freddie Mac, the federal mortgage corporation accused of making illegal contributions to political committees, according to year-end numbers released Thursday. Even without the record Freddie Mac fine, the FEC issued 12 penalties of more than $100,000, or almost a quarter of all six-figure fines in the agency's 31-year history.

"I'm very pleased with the vigorous enforcement record the FEC compiled in 2006. The numbers speak for themselves," FEC Chairman Michael Toner said in an interview. "It means strong confidence the FEC is properly prioritizing the most important cases and willing to pursue them to conclusion."

The FEC also settled three cases against advocacy groups for failing to register and file reports during the 2004 presidential campaign. Those groups agreed to pay almost $630,000 to end the ongoing disputes.

Advocates, however, said the numbers "don't tell the whole story."

"The penalties discussed in the FEC release reflect a mixed record," said Fred Wertheimer, president and CEO of Democracy 21, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group that aims to reduce the influence of money in politics.

"The size of the fine will act as a warning to outside groups about the potential costs of violating the law. In other cases, like the penalties imposed on 527 groups, that does not reflect success but rather failure of law enforcement because it came years after the violations and represented a small portion of the tens of millions of dollars that were illegally spent in the 2004 presidential election."

The agency processed almost 78,000 financial filings totaling 3.9 million pages and detailing $2.7 billion in campaign spending.