The treasurer of a local conservative group admitted breaking state campaign finance laws by illegally requesting contributions and failing to disclose the identity of donors supporting the group, according to the State Elections Enforcement Commission.
June Logie, treasurer of Citizens For Responsible Government, on March 20 signed a consent order with the state agency, admitting the violations and agreeing to pay a civil penalty of $400.
The SEEC’s conclusion of the case comes nearly three years after Easton resident Robert Natt asked the agency to investigate CRG. Former Easton resident Sherry Harris is named in the complaint as CRG president.
The SEEC’s initial investigation into Natt’s Nov. 12, 2021 complaint against CRG found the local activist group violated several campaign finance laws but dismissed the case when Logie failed to sign an agreement and pay a $200 fine within the one year time period per the statutory requirement.
“Respondent Logie to date has not honored her agreement by submitting the signed consent order to the commission along with the payment of a $200 civil penalty. Because this matter had a resolved by date of Nov. 12, 2022, it has therefore now timed-out pursuant to General Statutes§ 9-7b (a),” the commission’s final ruling stated.
Natt criticized the commission for allowing Logie to time out its investigation and refiled the same complaint.
“I’m glad the commission reopened the case and concluded it,” said Natt. “I’ll be watching CRG to make sure they follow the law.”
Among other violations, the state agency found CRG’s use of a GoFundMe page and PayPal account to collect donations from its supporters violated state law because Logie didn’t properly identify donor information and didn’t properly list them on campaign finance disclosure statements.
Logie’s group calls itself the oldest PAC in the state on its website EastonEye.org, and for years has injected itself in local issues by mailing political and education-related pamphlets to all Easton residents.
Logie said the SEEC investigation was Natt’s attempt to discredit CRG and “a huge waste of taxpayer money.”
She did not respond to the Easton Courier’s question why she failed to pay the initial fee and sign the consent order in 2021. She maintains the GoFundMe violations were unintentional. She claims GoFundMe closed the group’s account after the group put out fliers that “educated people on Critical Race Theory.” The closed account made it impossible to access the donor information needed to fill out the SEEC form, according to Logie.
“We were unable to identify the persons donating and unable to record the information needed to fill out the SEEC form properly, ” she said.
Natt grew suspicious of CRG during the 2021 municipal election when it sent out a blast text message and mailer urging voters to defeat incumbent Democratic First Selectman David Bindelglass that read “Please Save Small Town Easton with Your Republican Votes.”
SEEC’s 2021 investigation found those messages to be a political ad and that CRG violated state campaign finance laws because it did not identify who paid for them.
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