McGavick admits finance report error

SEATTLE – Republican U.S. Senate candidate Mike McGavick has acknowledged making an error in a recent campaign finance report.

McGavick spokesman Elliott Bundy said this week the campaign has less money in the bank than it claimed in a report filed with the Federal Election Commission last month. Bundy called the mistake an honest misinterpretation of FEC rules, adding that the candidate’s report for the first quarter of 2006 will be corrected.

In its report, filed in mid-April, the McGavick campaign overstated its March 31 cash balance by $147,286, Bundy said – confirming an accusation made by state Democrats last week. Bundy had initially denied the allegation.

Democrats accused McGavick of padding his campaign finance report to make it look healthier than it is in his race against Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell.

Cantwell reported nearly $5.6 million cash on hand as of March 31, far above the $748,975 that Bundy now says McGavick should have reported. The Republican’s FEC report stated a balance of $896,261.

“Our records show that McGavick has engaged in shady, Enron-style campaign accounting,” said state Democratic Party spokesman Kelly Steele.

Bundy told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: “This is a simple mistake on our part which we are already in the process of correcting. We are more than happy to admit when we are wrong. We take responsibility for our mistakes and we are willing to fix them.”

Bundy said the discrepancy occurred because the campaign bought a statewide round of TV commercials for a period straddling two quarterly FEC reporting periods, running from March 22 through April 3. He said the campaign thought it wasn’t required to report the April portion until its next quarterly report. The additional spending would have been reported for the second quarter, Bundy said.

“The problem occurred because we received the bill on March 30, and it was due something like April 3. Because the bill was due in the second quarter, we believed that we didn’t have to report it until the second quarter,” he said.

After Democrats accused McGavick of padding his cash balance, the McGavick campaign checked with the FEC and learned that the operative date for reporting purposes is when a debt is incurred.

“We don’t have a lot of money compared to (Cantwell). Why would we fudge it?” Bundy said.