Victor Marx campaign receives one of the largest fines in state history

The state has issued what it says is one of its largest campaign finance fines ever imposed on Republican gubernatorial candidate Victor Marx for accepting campaign contributions above the state’s legal limit.

“The scale of the violations are without precedent,” said administrative hearing officer Macon Cowles. 

His initial decision recommends a nearly $58,000 fine against the Marx campaign, which is higher than the state requested. 

The Marx campaign has admitted to “unintentionally” accepting campaign donations above the state’s legal limit. The Colorado Constitution bars candidates for governor from accepting cumulative contributions from any one individual above $1,450.

Marx’s campaign blamed the excess contributions on inexperience. The campaign’s attorney Chris Murray said during the hearing that the state’s requested penalty was “out of whack with the nature of the conduct.”

Murray did not respond to an immediate request for comment from CPR on whether the campaign planned to appeal the initial decision. 

The Colorado Secretary of State’s office said the campaign accepted 203 contributions, well over legal limits, totaling about $83,000. State rules require the original contributions to be refunded, or if that’s not possible, donated to a charity. 

“The person charged with compliance did not know what he was doing, and no one above him made sure that he did,” Cowles wrote in his decision. “Why an experienced professional was not hired when the Marx Campaign carried a balance of ‘hundreds of thousands of dollars’ in its bank account.”

The Marx campaign asked for a reduced fine, noting that the campaign tried to return the funds and also reported all the overages to the state. 

“Respondents get credit for two things. Every prohibited contribution was disclosed in the campaign’s own reports; there is no allegation of hidden money,” Cowles said. But he added that it wasn’t enough to reduce the fine, especially when the campaign kept the additional money ahead of the competitive June primary election. 

Marx defeated state lawmakers Barbara Kirkmeyer and Scott Bottoms to make the November ballot.

Cowles said the volume and duration of the violations, their continuation after the state notified the campaign of issues, depositing excessive checks, and the campaign’s disregard of pop-up warnings on the state’s campaign finance site led to the large fine.

He also said that his decision was impacted by the, “months-long retention of prohibited funds, the failure to document a single reattribution as the rule requires, and the mass of mistaken and amended reports are each aggravating factors. Together they far outweigh Respondents’ disclosure.”