Second in a two-part series.
In Louisiana, resigning from public office does not necessarily mean leaving behind all the perks of the job.
In 2020 and 2021, seven former elected officials used dormant campaign funds to buy sports tickets they used after leaving their electoral positions, a review of campaign finance documents reveals. became.
Sports tickets have long been viewed as a justifiable expense for politicians seeking office or currently in elected positions. According to Kathleen Allen, administrator of the state’s ethics commission, using campaign donations for sports tickets is a way for officials to find out why the spending is related to a campaign or an elected job. It’s legal as far as it can be explained.
But it’s difficult to explain how the spending on sports tickets by elected former officials could be related to holding elected offices they no longer hold. .
Part 1:Elected officials in Louisiana use campaign funds to buy LSU and Saints tickets
Former elected officials should face more restrictions on spending from campaign funds than those who are actively running for office or already holding elected posts. But these politicians took advantage of a loophole that allowed them to continue spending campaign funds more freely.
Two former elected officials, former Rep. John Alario of Westwego and John Raymond Smith of Leesville, have more elections than most elected officials currently in office in 2020 and 2021. I spent my money on sports tickets.
In February 2020, Alario used the remaining campaign funds to spend $9,450 on LSU tickets. Smith spent $13,280 on his suite at Tiger Stadium that same season, from his campaign account.
Alario and Smith were unable to run for re-election in 2019 due to term limits. Her last day of service in Congress was January 13, 2020, about a month before each purchased her LSU seat.
Former Speaker of the House and Speaker of the Senate, Alario has worked in Congress since the early 1970s. Smith has been a state legislator since his 1990s.
Arario said in an interview that he likely bought the LSU tickets in early January, days before he formally resigned as president of the Senate, and before LSU’s national championship game. The spend may not have appeared on his campaign account form until February. This is because the credit card used to purchase the spend was charged to his campaign.
Smith was unable to be reached for an interview. Messages leaving a phone number listed in his campaign report were not returned and messages sent via Facebook were not responded to. Smith’s son-in-law, former US Congressman Chris John, also did not return calls or text messages sent to his cell phone in an attempt to reach Smith.
Records show that Smith purchased the Tiger Stadium suite from Alison Farr. Alison Farr is a state lobbyist who works on behalf of Acadian Ambulance, a large government contractor and major campaign funder for state legislators. Farr reached out to her office for comment on the story, but she did not respond.
Alario purchased a portion of the ticket (worth $3,220) from SNDV. SNDV is a company he founded in 1999 with former lawmakers and local government contractors to pay for the Tiger Stadium suites. The group is led by Francis Heitmeyer, a former state senator from New Orleans. For more than a decade, Heitmeyer was a lobbyist for the New Orleans He Baton He Rouge Steamboat Pilots Association, an influential group in state politics.
Unclear ‘future’ for former civil servants
Under state law, a former elected representative’s remaining campaign funds can only be used for charitable contributions to nonprofits or campaign contributions to other political candidates or causes. Retired elected officials also have the option to return remaining campaign funds to donors.
Former officials often circumvent these restrictions on old campaign funds by declaring in campaign finance reports that they are running for an undesignated “future” electoral office. They can do so even if the campaign is not being organized or funded.
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Both Arario and Smith have mentioned in their recent campaign form that they may run for “future” office, but neither has emerged as a serious candidate in the upcoming election.
“Might be so [run for office again]” Arario was asked about the vague “future” office listed on his campaign form.
Anne Lovell, former chairman of the Federal Election Commission and national campaign finance expert, called the “speculation” about a possible presidential run into spending on sports tickets from old campaign funds. should not be used to justify[Until Alario runs for office again]Ravel, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, and former chairman of the California Commission that oversees the enforcement of campaign funds, said some state laws prevent the money from being used for illicit purposes. ing.
“I can’t imagine too many people doing that here in California. [California] The Fair Practices Board will be over them,” she said.
Ticket price is considered a donation
The elected former officers take advantage of the fact that the majority of the cost of most LSU football, men’s basketball and baseball season tickets is technically a non-profit donation.
Because elected and former public officials are permitted to use invalid campaign funds for nonprofit contributions, mandatory contributions accompanying sports tickets are considered legitimate campaign spending under state law. considered.
The approximately 56,000 football season tickets sold at Tiger Stadium require donations to the LSU Heritage Fund or the Tiger Athletic Foundation, organizations that financially support the university’s athletic programs. For example, according to documents provided by LSU, football season tickets near the 50-yard line on the west side of Tiger Stadium cost $495 per ticket and require a compulsory donation of $1,125 per ticket to the Heritage Fund. .
“It’s totally legal,” said former R-Lake Charles senator Ronnie Johns, who used his old campaign funds to buy LSU tickets. “Most of the money goes to foundations.”
Johns has announced that he will resign from the Senate to be appointed chairman of the Louisiana Gaming Control Board on July 23, 2021. Three days before that, Johns sent his $3,660 “donation” from Senate campaign accounts to the LSU Campaign Division.
A survey of campaign finance records revealed that Johns’ charitable donations were exactly what other lawmakers reported paying for LSU football season tickets that year.
“We donated tickets to people who wanted to go to LSU games. “There was no senator, so LSU offered me a ticket,” Johns’ former Senate seat at the time.
Former DA “You’re looking for a story that doesn’t exist”
Former East Baton Rouge District Attorney and Judge Doug Morrow, more than a decade after leaving public office, still spends his remaining campaign funds on sports tickets.
A former LSU and NFL football player, Morrow has not held an elected office since stepping down as Baton Rouge’s chief prosecutor in 2009. He funded in February 2020. He confirmed in an interview that his family needed donations to keep his tickets for the football season he’d had since the early 1970s. Morrow, he said, uses campaign funds only to cover donations to the Traditions Fund. His personal funds cover the actual ticket costs. “Contributions to the Traditions Fund will be paid out of my campaign account. I think this is the fair way.”
The former prosecutor said he had season tickets for decades before LSU put mandatory nonprofit donations on the seats. The cost of going to each home game has increased significantly.
“Frankly, I wish they didn’t do that,” he said.
Morrow does not use his season ticket to enter the game himself. He works in the Tiger Stadium broadcast booth as a commentator for the LSU Sports Radio Network. His family usually uses his seat, he said.
Campaign finance experts say Louisiana could do more to crack down on former elected officials’ spending.
The problem is not that Louisiana’s ethics laws are weak, but that the Louisiana Ethics Commission does not have the resources and tools to do what is already prescribed. Former ethics committee members say they don’t have enough staff to spot-check or routinely audit campaign finance reports. Scott Schneider, a Texas-based attorney who served on the Louisiana State Ethics Commission from 2008 until 2013, said:
“We didn’t have the resources or the desire to do it.”
— The Louisiana Illuminator is an independent, non-profit, bipartisan report driven by a mission to reveal how decisions in Baton Rouge are made and how they affect the daily lives of Louisianas Institution.
