Horner campaign cleared in campaign violation complaint

Tom Horner

The Office of Administrative Hearings on Thursday dismissed a complaint filed against Independence Party candidate Tom Horner by the Republican Party of Minnesota. The GOP alleged that Horner accepted information about a poll done by Horner’s friend at Decision Resouces Ltd., in violation of campaign finance rules. Judge Manuel J. Cervantes said the poll data was already public and had no value when Decision Resources gave the Horner campaign the results.

Judge Cervantes wrote:

The Administrative Law Judge concludes that the Complainant has failed to establish probable cause to believe DRL provided Mr. Horner and his campaign committee with a prohibited corporate contribution when it gave Mr. Horner and his committee polling data that it had already provided to the Pioneer Press. As of June 7, 2010, the date Mr. Horner received the data, the polling data was public and available upon request. In fact, it is undisputed that DRL provided the poll results to Margaret Anderson Kelliher’s campaign as well as to the Star Tribune, Associated Press, and MinnPost on June 8, 2010. Because the polling data was public and free of charge to anyone upon request, it had no monetary value by the time it was provided to Mr. Horner and it cannot form the basis of a Minn. Stat. § 211B.13 or § 211B.15 complaint.

The Complaint is dismissed.

The GOP said in a statement on Thursday afternoon that they would appeal the ruling:

“The Republican Party of Minnesota will appeal today’s decision from the Office of Administrative Hearings. By failing to hold Tom Horner accountable for his acceptance of what we believe is clearly an illegal corporate contribution, Judge Cervantes has created a loop hole the size of Lake Superior which will lead to a wild west situation in which anything goes in our state’s elections. We believe Judge Cervantes has committed a ‘clear error of law,’ and we will begin immediately begin crafting our appeal this afternoon.”