Van Hollen campaign pays fine after dispute with EMILY’s List

Sen. Chris Van Hollen’s (D-Md.) campaign will return over $3,000 in contributions and pay a $2,100 penalty to the U.S. Treasury following a settlement with a group that supported his Democratic Senate primary opponent, The Baltimore Sun reported on Wednesday.

At the center of the dispute is a 2015 Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint filed by EMILY’s List, a political organization that supported former Rep. Donna Edwards’s (D) 2016 bid against Van Hollen for Senate.

In its complaint, EMILY’s List claims that Van Hollen violated FEC rules by using the group’s finance reports in order to identify potential donors.

{mosads}The incident in question occurred after EMILY’s List falsely labeled Van Hollen as a Republican in a solicitation letter to its donors. In response, Van Hollen’s campaign sent a letter to the donor list correcting the error that also included a solicitation form — eventually raising $3,350.

According to the report, the Van Hollen campaign agreed to settle the dispute by contributing $3,350 to the U.S. Treasury and paying a civil penalty of $2,100.

The agreement further underscores that the commission discovered no evidence suggesting that Van Hollen personally violated FEC rules.

“The campaign could have continued to contest the complaint, but the primary ended almost a year ago, the dollar amounts involved were very small, and Senator Van Hollen himself was not a respondent,” Van Hollen spokeswoman Bridgett Frey said, according to the Sun.

“Instead, the campaign chose voluntarily to settle the complaint and move forward.”