More than 70 congressional candidates whose names will appear on the general election ballot in November failed to file legally required personal financial disclosures, according to new complaints filed with the House and Senate ethics committees on Friday.
According to the complaints, filed by the Campaign Legal Center, 66 House candidates and 11 Senate candidates missed the deadline to disclose assets, liabilities, book deals and other financial information that all candidates and lawmakers have to file.
Candidates are required to file these disclosures by May 15, or within 30 days of becoming a candidate, although they can request extensions up to 90 days.
“When candidates fail to file their financial disclosure reports accurately and on time, they deprive voters of crucial information about the financial interests of those who hope to represent them,” the Campaign Legal Center wrote in its complaint to the House Ethics Committee. “In order to make an informed decision at the ballot box, voters need to know about any potential conflicts of interest their Congressional candidates may have, and whether the claims made to voters align with their personal finances.”
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The Washington Sun analyzed the Senate and House disclosure databases to confirm none of the candidates had filed their personal financial disclosures. Several candidates told The Sun they were unaware of the requirement.
Oklahoma Democratic nominee N’Kiyla Jasmine Thomas, who is running against Republican Rep. Kevin Hern, said her campaign had been unaware of the filing requirement before The Sun reached out for comment.
“It is a genuine administrative oversight from a first time candidate who has never held political office and is learning the complexities that come with running a federal campaign,” Thomas wrote in a statement. “Once this was brought to our attention, we immediately began reviewing the requirements and taking the necessary steps to correct the issue.”
Greg Howard Jr., the campaign co-chair for Amanda Pusczek, a Democratic congressional candidate in Alabama, told The Sun that the missed filing was “an unintentional administrative oversight on our end” and that the campaign was working to submit a disclosure.
The vast majority of the candidates who have failed to file are running in districts where their campaigns are considered long shots, as categorized by the Cook Political Report.
At least one candidate who has failed to file, Republican state Rep. Mark Tedford, the nominee in Oklahoma’s solid-red 1st Congressional District, is expected to win his seat in November.
The Tedford campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But several other campaigns got back to The Sun, saying the missed disclosures were honest oversights.
The campaign spokesperson for Whitfield Harrington Jr., an independent candidate in Illinois, thanked The Sun for bringing the issue to their attention and said the team would be “contacting the appropriate officials to clarify the requirement, determine the applicable deadline, and make certain that any necessary action is handled promptly and through the proper process.”
Jeff Wadlin, a Libertarian Party Senate candidate in Arkansas, told The Sun that his accountant will file the financial disclosure in the coming days.
“As a third-party candidate, I didn’t know this was a requirement until recently,” Wadlin said.
Justin Murphy, the Republican nominee challenging incumbent Sen. Cory Booker (D-New Jersey), told The Sun that his campaign had “filed the required preliminary disclosure paperwork with the appropriate committee, and we are awaiting further instruction from them on filing the required financial disclosure.”
Kyle Austin, the Libertarian nominee in Montana’s Senate race who was cited in the complaint, questioned why the Senate hadn’t notified him when he missed the deadline.
“They haven’t put any effort into it, so the question is, do they even really care?” Austin said.
The other six candidates cited in the complaint did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Sun.
“Failing to enforce violations of the House’s transparency requirements may incentivize others to ignore the law,” the Campaign Legal Center wrote in the complaint. “The Ethics Committee should also provide updated guidance making the filing requirements and the penalties for not filing timely and accurate disclosure reports clear.”
Tom Rust, chief counsel and staff director for the House Ethics Committee, declined to comment. The offices of Senate Ethics Committee chair James Lankford and vice chair Chris Coons did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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