Commissioner: Court should have decided campaign donation refunds

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- As a lawmaker, Ken Legan said he helped draft the legislation that created the Missouri Ethics Commission more than 15 years ago.

Now as a new member of that commission, Legan will help decide whether Missouri politicians must return millions of dollars they received before the state's campaign contribution limits were recently reinstated by the state Supreme Court.

He doesn't want to make that decision -- and doesn't think he should have to.

As lawmakers, "we never intended that the commission ever would have to make a decision like this," Legan said Wednesday. "To me, this is a decision the Supreme Court should have made."

The state Supreme Court on July 19 struck down a law that had repealed Missouri's individual campaign contribution limits as of the start of 2007. But in a follow-up ruling Monday, the Supreme Court left it to the Ethics Commission to determine whether most candidates must refund the money they received in excess of those limits.

Legan was quizzed about the decision Wednesday as the Senate Gubernatorial Appointments Committee recommended that his June appointment to the commission be confirmed.

A former longtime Republican lawmaker from Halfway, Legan said he was shocked that the Supreme Court passed the refund issue onto ethics commissioners.

"They laid an egg in our basket, and we'll see what we can do with it," Legan said.

The six-member Ethics Commission, which enforces campaign finance laws, is to discuss the court ruling at a meeting today. But Legan said it does not plan to make a decision today on whether contributions should be refunded.

The Supreme Court said that when laws are struck down, such rulings generally apply retroactively to when the law kicked in, not just prospectively from the date of the court decision.

But the court suggested the Ethics Commission may have to make a case-by-case decision on whether it would impose an undue hardship for candidates to refund money received in excess of the reinstated contribution limits.

Those limits restrict individual contributions to $1,275 per election to statewide candidates, $650 to Senate candidates and $325 to House candidates.

After the court's July 19 decision, Attorney General Jay Nixon submitted a brief to the court arguing that the ruling should be applied retroactively and excess contributions should be returned. Nixon's office stressed that it was representing the Missouri Ethics Commission.

But after Monday's ruling, Ethics Commission Executive Director Robert Connor stressed that the commission had never taken a position on whether refunds should be made.

On Wednesday, Legan echoed that assertion. He said Nixon's staff informed the Ethics Commission in a July 21 conference call that he likely would advocate for a retroactive interpretation.

Legan said the Ethics Commission never voted to take that position, nor did he recall ethics commissioners either endorsing or disavowing that provision in their conversations.

"The position of the commission on the telephone was we should not take a position on this at all," Legan said.