The New Jersey Democratic Party has paid more than $42,000 to settle allegations that it improperly spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a series of controversial robocalls meant to pull support from Chris Christie in his campaign against former Gov. Jon Corzine.
The party had faced more than $200,000 in fines stemming from the six in-kind contributions, which totaled $227,120.64, most of which were used to pay for robocalls supporting third-party candidate Chris Daggett, who was seen as drawing votes away from Christie.
The Election Law Enforcement Commission, which filed suit against the state party in 2010, said the contributions evaded campaign contribution limits in place for gubernatorial races and that the party needed to make the contributions through a separate campaign account.
In its settlement, announced Wednesday but signed Dec. 12, the Democrats didn’t admit to any wrongdoing but agreed to pay $42,433.88 to settle the complaint — the ninth largest settlement in the commission’s history, according to executive director Jeffrey M. Brindle.
A spokeswoman for the Democratic Party said she was reviewing the decision.
The commission also imposed a fine totaling $24,900 against the Dumont Republican Club for failing to file required campaign finance information with the state in 2004 and 2005.
Though the club submitted much of the missing information to ELEC in response to a 2007 complaint, the commission noted that some of the information was filed more than six years late.
But club chairwoman Betty Krystyniak said the organization has no money on hand and wasn’t aware of the fine.
She called the failure to file campaign finance information an “innocent mistake.”
Unlike in most campaign finance cases, the club declined to settle with ELEC and instead brought the case before an administrative law judge, who found against the club. The commission mostly upheld Judge Irene Jones’ decision.
The club has has yet to pay the fine, which was imposed Dec. 26 and is the 17th largest in the state’s history.
