Christine O’Donnell, the Delaware manifestation of the nationwide Tea Bagger Freakout over having a black President in 2010, was found guilty of federal election law violations last week in the case the FEC brought against her for using campaign contributions to pay her rent in her Greenville Place apartment home. The FEC is seeking a $25,000 penalty. Yesterday, in an unofficial capacity (i.e. not an official settlement offer in writing), O’Donnell and her campaign committee offered to settle the matter for $10,000.
My back of the envelope reveals the following: Her apartment home was used as an “campaign office” for approximately a year, from early 2010 to March 2011. Her rent was $1410 a month. That is $16,920 for twelve months. She supposedly reimbursed her campaign committee $770 a quarter for the premises, or four payments of $770, or a total of $3080. I don’t know the rules here about using a residence as a campaign office, like are the campaign and candidate in her personal capacity supposed to split the rent during the relevant time period? Or if the office space is a residence, is the candidate on the hook for the whole thing? From these questions, the she could owe in terms of rent anywhere between $5,380 (assuming a split in rent between the campaign and O’Donnell minus the $3080) or $13,840 (assuming that the campaign is fully on the hook minus $3080). In other words, I think the $10k offer is reasonable, the government should just take it and be done with her (assuming of course my reasoning and math is correct, and it may not be).