Did Deb Heffernan, Ed Mulvihill, and Peco Liquors Violate Delaware Campaign Finance Laws?
Signs point to ‘yes’.
Let’s take a trip in the Not-So-Wayback Machine to December of 2021. December 30, to be specific. Progressive candidate Becca Cotto is running an insurgent campaign against longtime Rep. Heffernan (Heffernan ultimately had both Sarah McBride and Matt Meyer come to her rescue just in time for the primary, but, I digress).
On December 30, 2021, Rep. Heffernan received a $600 contribution from Ed Mulvihill. On that same day, she also received a $600 contribution from Peco Liquor Store, Inc. Mulvihill describes himself as the sole owner and operator of Peco Liquor Store, which is officially a Delaware corporation. Meaning, if he’s telling the truth, Heffernan, Mulvihill, and Peco Liquors violated Delaware’s campaign laws.
To be specific:
Del. Code Title 15, S. (I can’t do that fancy section logo, sorry) 8012 reads as follows:
A ratable portion of the contribution by the corporation, partnership or other entity shall be deemed to be a contribution under this chapter to the political committee by each such person who owns a 50% or greater interest in the entity, shall be included within the limit imposed by this section on individual contributions, and shall be so included in the reports filed by the candidate committee with the Commissioner under § 8030 of this title.
In other words (barristers, please prove me wrong), a business owner who’s a sole proprietor can’t max out an individual contribution and then max out a contribution from their business. They can do one or the other. $600 in total for a legislative race, not $1200.
C’mon, folks, ‘fess up.
Also, per usual, the Department of Elections is far less diligent than they could should be. The Department of Elections seems to not disclose ownership of business entities that donate, despite the fact that they are supposed to be keeping track of that information. Does anybody seriously think that this apparent violation is the only sweetheart handshake deal that is illegal under Delaware law, but is done with a wink and a nod and no look whatsoever from the ‘enforcement agency’?
In some ways, I can’t blame the Department of Elections. Delaware’s elected officials prefer a system where Delaware Way stuff like this remains opaque. At least, they have up until now. It’s long past time for our elected officials to insist on more transparency on these casual elections violations.
I sincerely hope that someone, anyone, will take this and run with it. The alternative is–corruption as usual.
Just to make life easier moving forward…ALT+21 = §
Thanks, Carl!
I knew that when I worked for the General Assembly, but that was several presidents ago…
The Mulvihill/Peco donation to Heffernan is far from the only instance of this in campaign finance disclosures. It’s just exceedingly difficult to find other violations because there’s a lot of data to comb through and, more importantly, the Department of Elections doesn’t disclose ownership data on businesses that donate to campaigns. On top of that, Delaware is notoriously secretive about who exactly owns the various business entities here.
When I asked the Department of Elections last fall why they don’t disclose ownership information, they said that “corporations aren’t big contributors here” which is a pretty absurd statement.
I canvassed for Rae this weekend and am enthusiastically supporting her, but I’m not sure this is a violation, unless either a) Mulvihill or a company under his control donated additional money after Rep. Heffernan’s primary against Cotto or b) her campaign bank account dipped below $600 at any point during the primary season. From my understanding, candidates are allowed to take $1200 from one contributor each cycle if they have a primary—they just can’t *spend* the other $600 of it until after the primary.
Your critique that sole or majority ownership of businesses which contribute to campaigns should be public, however, is definitely on point
No, those contributions were BOTH for the primary. $600 max. Yes, either he or the business could have made an additional contribution before the General, but not two contributions during the primary cycle unless he was not the owner of the business, which he claimed to be.
As I understand it, they have to segregate that money, so general election money can’t be spent until after the primary. It’s incumbent on the campaign committee to do that. Maybe her campaign committee did, but it’s another example of there being a ton of data in the reports and not really enough people to check for potential violations.