Campaign panel delays decision on Harris fine

By Johnny Brannon
Advertiser Staff Writer

Just hours after Mayor Jeremy Harris and his campaign committee filed three lawsuits against the state Campaign Spending Commission today, the panel balked at its director's request to slap the campaign with a hefty fine.

But Harris campaign officials now fear the dispute will merely be dragged out longer, leading to further controversy and negative publicity months closer to the November election, in which Harris plans to run for governor.

At issue is a complaint filed with the commission by its executive director, Robert Watada, which alleges that the Harris campaign improperly donated $100,000 to the Democratic National Committee in 2000.

The complaint also charges that the Harris campaign spent more than $24,000 on expenses that were unrelated to Harris' 2000 re-election effort, such as parking tickets and trips to Washington, D.C., California and the Philippines.

Instead of validating the allegations and fining the campaign upwards of $350,000, the commission voted 3-2 to give its staff one month to compile further evidence to support Watada's complaint and to allow the campaign a month after that to prepare a response.

But attorneys for the campaign said they had no confidence the commission would treat the complaint fairly, and urged the panel to either toss it out or approve it immediately so that they could appeal it in court.

"I would just as soon have this resolved and not referred into some sinkhole from where it can be resurrected later on further down to make it more difficult for Mayor Harris to run a campaign, unless that's the intention here," attorney William McCorriston told the commission.

Commissioner Della Au Belatti, who proposed that the decision be postponed, hotly disputed the suggestion that the commission was out to discredit Harris and sabotage his run for governor.

"This is a fair body," she said. "There is no one here that is beholden to anyone."

Siding with Belatti to delay the complaint were commissioners Mona Chock and Richard Choy. Voting in opposition were commissioner Clifford Muraoka and commission chairman A. Duane Black, both of whom later said they were convinced there was already sufficient evidence to back up the complaint.

Prior to the vote, Harris and his campaign filed lawsuits in federal and state court to challenge the complaint and other interpretations of campaign spending law that Harris says have harmed his gubernatorial campaign.

The Democratic National Committee joined as a plaintiff in the first of two federal suits, which argues that the campaign spending commission is violating the constitutional right of Harris and the DNC to freedom of speech.