OKLAHOMA CITY — If the Oklahoma Ethics Commission monitors municipal elections, you’d never know it by agency records available to the public.
The commission has met 20 times in the last 24 months, and not once did it announce a penalty against any candidate in any municipal elective campaign, meeting minutes reflect.
During that two-year period the commission launched several investigations into allegations of malfeasance, but those records are confidential – cases are identified only by numbers, not names – until or unless the complaint is proven, and a penalty is assessed.
In 2019, Holly Johnson, then a member of the state Ethics Commission, lamented that the commission was hobbled by “severely limited funding” and was “understaffed”.
The commission’s budget for Fiscal Year 2022 was $814,184, and the authorized FTE (full-time equivalent) was 6.3 employees, down from 7 FTE in FY 2019.
The Southwest Ledger emailed the agency on Sept. 6, asking, “Has the Ethics Commission issued any financial penalty in any municipal election within the past 3 years? If so, what was the amount of that penalty?”
Pamela Williams, the commission’s senior compliance officer/investigator, replied, “Due to the volume of phone calls and emails, as well as the staff shortage at the Oklahoma Ethics Commission, please allow at least two weeks for a response.”
A link to Ethics Commission settlements of alleged violations extending back to 2014 was emailed to the Ledger last week. Of the 28 settlements listed, just one referred to a city council race: in Lawton in 2018.
Last February the Ethics Commission went behind closed doors to discuss a case involving an alleged campaign finance ethics rule violation committed five years earlier.
Besides taking a long time to answer inquiries, apparently ethics cases are resolved at a snail’s pace – and not just in Oklahoma.
California city case
lingered for 5 years
A member of the Milpitas City Council was charged by California’s Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) in August 2017 with having committed three violations during his 2016 campaign. The case was finally settled in May 2022, almost five years later, for $15,000.
Anthony Phan was first elected to the five-member Milpitas, California, City Council in 2016, at the age of 22, and was re-elected in 2020. Milpitas, population 83,000, is generally considered to be a suburb of San Jose.
At the start of his 2016 campaign Phan’s treasurer was his cousin, Le, who was only 14 years old. Phan claimed Le was “good with numbers.”
Phan’s candidate-controlled committee that year was Neighbors for Anthony Phan 2016 – City Council. The committee reported a $43,000 loan from Phan – but committee bank records showed no such deposit. Instead, $5,000 in cash was deposited.
Phan told the FPPC that he intended to make a $43,000 loan to the committee, with money he saved from special events in his life. He said he gave $43,000 cash in a shoebox to Le to deposit into the committee’s bank account. Instead, Le deposited just $5,000. Unsure how to correct the “reporting issue,” Phan filed an amended report that $20,000 of the loan had been forgiven.
The FPPC Enforcement Division’s investigation “was unable to confirm or deny Phan’s account of these events,” but bank statements confirmed that $5,000 in cash was deposited.
Subsequently $4,500 cash was withdrawn from the committee bank account: $200 on one occasion and $4,300 on another. According to Phan, the cash withdrawals “were for repayment of the $5,000 loan he made to the committee,” investigators reported. “Phan contends he mistakenly believed that since he made the loan in cash, the committee could repay the loan in cash as well.”
“By misreporting receiving a $43,000 loan and forgiving $20,000 of the loan,” the Committee and Phan violated state ethics rules. By accepting a loan of $5,000 in cash and impermissibly making cash expenditures totaling $4,500, Phan and his committee violated another ethics rule.
Phan said he became treasurer of the committee in 2017. The FPPC has been unable to locate his cousin, who was a minor at the time of the violations.
In yet another issue, Phan and his committee failed to timely disclose” the occupations and employers of 25 of his contributors, as required by state law. And later the committee and Phan inaccurately reported the occupations and employers of almost half of those contributors; Phan “admitted that he made up the contributor information for 12 of the contributors” in his amendment campaign statement, the CFPPC wrote.
Ultimately Phan’s committee received $31,712 in donations and spent $35,097, the FPPC reported.
Phan fined $15,000
The FPPC imposed an administrative fine of $5,000 for each of the three violations of the state’s Political Reform Act. The case was finally settled in May.
“That was my first campaign for city council, I was fresh out of college and 22,” Phan wrote in a text message to The Milpitas Beat. Mistakes were made, I’ve taken responsibility, and I’ve grown a lot since then.”
Phan is now one of four candidates for Mayor of Milpitas; the winner will be decided in the Nov. 8 general election. The incumbent mayor, Rich Tran, termed out after three consecutive two-year terms and then withdrew his candidacy for election to a City Council seat.
Phan is a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles, receiving a bachelor’s degree in political science, and is a graduate of Stanford University, earning a political psychology certificate.