President-elect Trump’s nominee for secretary of education should pay back a $5.3 million fine her PAC was assessed in Ohio eight years ago before taking office, four Democratic senators demanded Wednesday.
Sens. Tom Udall, Jeff Merkley, Ed Markey and Bernie Sanders signed onto a letter to charter school advocate Betsy DeVos telling her she needs to pay the fine owed by the All Children Matter Political Action Committee.
DeVos’s PAC was cited for campaign finance violations dating back to 2008 in Ohio, including sending about $870,000 from its national PAC to a state group. It’s illegal to transfer more than $10,000 from a national PAC to a state PAC.
The PAC ignored a state advisory ruling stating the transfer would be illegal and the state assessed the fine, but the PAC disbanded instead of paying up.
“Rather than pay the fines for violating the law, the All Children Matter PACs simply ceased operation and never paid the significant sum it owed to the state of Ohio,” the letter said. “The blatant disregard for the law that your PAC demonstrated is deeply troubling. However, when the organization’s violations of law were punished by the Ohio Elections Commission, the PAC’s refusal to take responsibility and pay the fines is unconscionable.”
The senators wrote it’s a terrible precedent for someone who would be in charge of making student loans get paid back on time.
DeVos and her husband, Dick DeVos, were the top contributors to the PAC and she was in charge at the time of the fine.
