Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education owes state regulators $5.3 million in fines for violating election laws, five left-leaning senators said Wednesday.
Federal political action committees (PACs) run and financed, in part, by Betsy DeVos were hit with the penalties in 2006 by Ohio enforcement officials. The groups were found to have been in violation of exceeding legal limits on donations.
“Rather than pay the fines for violating the law, the All Children Matter PACs simply ceased operation and never paid the significant sum it owed to the state of Ohio,” the senators said, in a letter sent to DeVos. The signatories were Sens. Tom Udall (D-N.M.), Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
The lawmakers noted that All Children Matter even “sought an advisory opinion from the Ohio Elections Commission” in a bid to find out what was permissible.
“The Commission provided an advisory opinion stating that aggregate contributions of greater than $10,000 in a year to the Ohio affiliate would violate the law,” they noted. “Inexplicably, your PAC ignored this advisory opinion and proceeded to contribute $870,000 to the Ohio affiliate.”
Politico broke the story in late November. An Ohio Elections Commission official named Philip Richter told the publication that he has “been with the commission since 1996 and…never had anyone else ask for an advisory opinion and then proceed to not do what the opinion said.”
In 2013, Politico noted, a judge upheld the fines against All Children Matter and ordered the group to pay late fees.
“Tax filings from 2015–the latest available–list DeVos as an officer for the group,” the publication said. “In past statements, DeVos has identified herself as chair of the group.”
In their Wednesday letter to DeVos, the senators remarked that she and her husband “were one of the PAC’s biggest contributors” at the time of the transgressions.
Like President-elect Donald Trump, DeVos was born to wealthy parents and is now a billionaire.
DeVos has been prominently involved for years in right-wing Christian fundamentalist activism on education issues. She has prominently pushed for more corporate involvement in schools, and looser rules on subsidies for religious education.
