What about other financial aspects of the campaign finale? At the end of 2000, questions arose as to the financial condition of the Browne Campaign. Was the campaign in debt? The last of Browne’s loans to his own campaign had been paid off. The FEC reports for periods ending in November and December both show that there were no debts outstanding.
However, in the December 10, 2000 LibertyWire, Browne announced that he had previously said that the debt was around $100,000, but that fundraising had reduced it by $12,000. Browne continued by reporting that Willis and Yanik had between them forgone $20,000 in back pay, and that creditors and staff members were still owed $68,000. Browne’s remarks were not obviously compatible with FEC reports listing debts and unpaid bills of the campaign. Nor did they agree with FEC filings showing what Willis and Yanik had actually been paid. These amounts approximately agreed with other statements as to what they should be paid.
Browne’s remarks were also not obviously compatible with FEC regulations. If an individual actually forgives a debt from a campaign, the sum being forgiven is an individual donation. Individual donations were in 2000 legally limited to $2000 per person for the primary and general elections, not the $20,000 that Browne had claimed Willis and Yanik had given his campaign via debt forgiveness. Fortunately, the internal evidence indicates that Willis and Yanik had done nothing improper. Writing in the January 20 Liberty Wire, Willis asserted that his salary had been set in late 1999 at $62,000 per year, but that he had only been paid ‘a little over’ $50,000 for the entire year 2000. FEC reports indicate that he had actually been paid approximately $60,000 for the year, just as he had been promised in late 1999, and had not forgone collecting part of his salary.
$60,000 per year for 2000 was an enormous sum for a Libertarian campaign. $60,000 was still a far cry from the $123,000 in ‘fundraising commission’ that Carla Howell’s Massachusetts Senate campaign, according to its initial FEC Reports, paid or owed campaign CEO Michael Cloud for 2000.
What about other financial aspects of the campaign finale? At the end of 2000, questions arose as to the financial condition of the Browne Campaign. Was the campaign in debt? The last of Browne’s loans to his own campaign had been paid off. The FEC reports for periods ending in November and December both show that there were no debts outstanding.
However, in the December 10, 2000 LibertyWire, Browne announced that he had previously said that the debt was around $100,000, but that fundraising had reduced it by $12,000. Browne continued by reporting that Willis and Yanik had between them forgone $20,000 in back pay, and that creditors and staff members were still owed $68,000. Browne’s remarks were not obviously compatible with FEC reports listing debts and unpaid bills of the campaign. Nor did they agree with FEC filings showing what Willis and Yanik had actually been paid. These amounts approximately agreed with other statements as to what they should be paid.
Browne’s remarks were also not obviously compatible with FEC regulations. If an individual actually forgives a debt from a campaign, the sum being forgiven is an individual donation. Individual donations were in 2000 legally limited to $2000 per person for the primary and general elections, not the $20,000 that Browne had claimed Willis and Yanik had given his campaign via debt forgiveness. Fortunately, the internal evidence indicates that Willis and Yanik had done nothing improper. Writing in the January 20 Liberty Wire, Willis asserted that his salary had been set in late 1999 at $62,000 per year, but that he had only been paid ‘a little over’ $50,000 for the entire year 2000. FEC reports indicate that he had actually been paid approximately $60,000 for the year, just as he had been promised in late 1999, and had not forgone collecting part of his salary.
$60,000 per year for 2000 was an enormous sum for a Libertarian campaign. $60,000 was still a far cry from the $123,000 in ‘fundraising commission’ that Carla Howell’s Massachusetts Senate campaign, according to its initial FEC Reports, paid or owed campaign CEO Michael Cloud for 2000.
The discrepancy between the Browne Campaign’s FEC Reports and Harry Browne’s end of year fundraising was raised at the December National Committee meeting by Regional Representative Richard Schwarz. According to the December National Committee minutes, “Schwarz noted that Browne had recently attempted to raise about $100,000 to pay off campaign obligations. He said that this debt is not reflected in the latest FEC filings. He asked Willis to explain this. Willis said that the FEC reports need to be amended to reflect outstanding vendor debt.” As of Summer 2002 no such amended reports have been filed.
Willis’s remarks are important for another reason. One might imagine a campaign claiming that there were legal reasons why actual campaign debts would not appear on their FEC filings. Your author is not aware of a valid legal reason for not including debts in the filings, but there might be such a reason. Even if there were not such a reason, at this point readers should have no difficulty imagining a political campaign that made such a claim, if that claim were to the campaign’s advantage. However, when Willis was asked by the National Committee, he agreed that debts had to be revealed on the filings, and that the failure to list them had been a technical error. It remains to be explained why as of this writing the listing was never corrected.
So much for the December 2000 debt statements.
