After first refusing to provide campaign documents to the Maine Ethics Commission, the head of an effort to put a casino measure on the ballot in the state has relented and will hand over the documents in September.
The commission is investigating the sources of funding to the Horseracing Jobs Fairness campaign to quality a ballot measure for this November that would allow Shawn Scott, the brother Lisa Scott—who is heading the campaign—and only Shawn Scott, to build a casino in York County. The campaign has been operating since 2015.
The commission decided last month to investigate the sources of the funding after learning that more than $4 million that was previously attributed to Lisa Scott actually was loaned to her by Capital Seven and a Japanese firm.
This apparently violated state law that says that donors spending more than $5,000 on a campaign must make that fact known within a week.
The commission is investigating the funding to see if the campaign should be hit with fine, which could be as high as 100 percent of the amount that was reported late. If that yardstick is used, the campaign could be fined over $4 million.
Although the campaign argued that it was complying with the law, the commission hit various donors with subpoenas, demanding bank statements, financial records and other communications.
At first, Scott’s attorney refused the subpoenas and only agreed to accept them after the commission agreed to grant until September for Lisa Scott and the campaign’s treasurer to provide the documents. Then the commission tried to send the subpoenas to three alternate addresses for Scott. None were accepted.
The commission also seeks documents from Las Vegas-based Capital Seven and Bridge Capital LLC— operated by Shawn Scott—and which is based in the Northern Mariana Islands. Both oppose the requests.
The commission only became aware of funding sources other than Lisa Scott in April when Horseracing Jobs Fairness amended its financial records, about the same time that state legislators began to a focus a harsh spotlight on the efforts of the campaign.
In March, the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee held hearings on the initiative.
Scott is a controversial figure who was in the news two years ago when the government of Laos seized a casino operated by Bridge Capital over allegations of corruption. In 2003, he successfully ran the campaign that led to the state’s first slots casino, the facility that is now the Hollywood Casino in Bangor. He sold the rights to operate the casino to Penn National Gaming after regulators sought to prevent him from acquiring a gaming license after the Maine Harness Racing Commission accused him of “sloppy, if not irresponsible financial management.”
A similar initiative to authorize a slots parlor at Suffolk Downs, near Boston, Massachusetts ran afoul of state regulators when the campaign attempted to hide $1.6 million in contributions by one of Scott’s companies.
Besides trying to review financial documents associated with the campaign the commission is also mulling subpoenaing Lisa Scott to testify.
“I think we have an obligation to try and get information before voters go into the polls in November,” said Commissioner Richard Nass last week.
Meanwhile, the three organizations the commission is investigating last week once more missed a deadline for filing their campaign activities. The three organizations are International Development Concepts LLC, Lisa Scott and Miami Development Concepts LLC.
The other committee on which Scott serves as an officer: Horseracing Jobs Fairness, reported a $7,000 contribution from her and $10,560 in expenditures from April 1 – June 30, ending the same period with about $700,000 “cash on hand.”
Late filings can lead to fines, often hefty ones. The one allowable excuse for not filing is if there was no financial activity, Jonathan Wayne, executive director of the Maine Ethics Commission, told the Press Herald. “Maybe there was no financial activity, in which case there would be zero penalty.”
This week the legislature is due to vote on whether to put the measure on the ballot, which it is likely to do, despite misgivings by most members of the Veterans and Legal Affairs Committee that oversees election policy issues.
Rep. Louis Luchini, who co-chairs the committee, said the failure by three of the campaign organizations to file on time, “shows they don’t really care about Maine’s laws. You can add this to the violations of Maine law that they have now.”
