Green Mountain Future, a Democratic political action committee (PAC), must pay $30,000 for violating Vermont’s campaign finance laws during Peter Shumlin's (D.) race for governor in 2010.
Vermont’s state supreme court ordered the PAC to pay $20,000 for excluding its address from its website and TV ads during the 2010 gubernatorial elections, the Burlington Free Press reported. It also has to pay $10,000 for failing to register with the secretary of state and not filing campaign finance reports.
The PAC, set up by the Democratic Governor’s Association, jumped into the state’s 2010 governor’s race between now-Gov. Shumlin and Brian Dubie (R.). Green Mountain Future paid nearly $430,000 to air two TV ads attacking Dubie for supporting a local nuclear plant.
According to the Press:
The court ruled in October of 2011 that Green Mountain Future violated the state’s campaign law but imposed a penalty only for the PAC’s failure to register and report its contributions and spending. The state appealed the case to the Vermont Supreme Court, arguing that a penalty also should be imposed for the PAC’s failure to identify itself in ads and on its website.
In September, the Supreme Court agreed with the state, saying, "the difficulty of calculating a penalty [does not] mean that no penalty can be awarded."
"Voters are legally entitled to know who is seeking to influence them," Attorney General William Sorrell said Wednesday in a statement accompanying announcement of the agreement. "PACs need to obey the laws. They cannot hide. They must disclose their identity, including their address, their donors, and their expenditures, to the extent required by law."