Louisiana lawmaker who authored bill to reduce politicians’ ethics fines has racked up her own

State Rep. Denise Marcelle, D-Baton Rouge, sponsored a new law to reduce the fines politicians have to pay to the state when they miss a deadline for a campaign finance report. (Greg LaRose/Louisiana Illuminator)

The Baton Rouge lawmaker who pushed through a new state law to reduce fines for political candidates who don’t file campaign finance reports on time has failed to submit her own paperwork properly several times over the 15 years she has been in public office.

State Rep. Denise Marcelle, a Democrat, missed deadlines to turn in campaign finance reports and personal financial disclosure forms at least eight times since 2009, according to documents the Illuminator received from the Louisiana Board of Ethics through a public records request.

On six other occasions, ethics staff questioned whether the personal financial disclosure forms Marcelle had submitted were filled out properly, the records show.

In total, the state ethics board has assessed Marcelle $9,020 in fines over the years she has served in the Louisiana Legislature (2016-present) and on the Baton Rouge Metro Council (2008-2016). She ended up only having to pay $6,030 after the ethics board voted to reduce or waive her penalties in certain cases.

Marcelle would have faced even lower fines had the new law she sponsored been in place before this year.

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When legislators are late with campaign finance reports, they are assessed a late fee of $60 per day until they file them. Local parish council members, a job Marcelle held for eight years, and constables, an elected position Marcelle is seeking this fall, pay $40 per day for the same infraction.

Total daily fines for the offense used to max out at $2,000 for legislative candidates and $1,000 for those seeking parish-level council seats and the constable position. But Marcelle’s new law cuts both penalties in half as of Aug. 1. Also under the new law, Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays no longer count when late fees are calculated.

In an interview, Marcelle said she didn’t bring the legislation just to benefit herself. Many local candidates who fund their own campaigns can’t afford to hire someone to handle their finance reports, and they should not be expected to pay large fines, she said.

“I thought the fines were absurd,” Marcelle said. “I think the idea of penalizing someone for a late filing is fine, but they should be limited in scope.”

“You can be late with your house note or car note [and you get fined], but not to this degree,” she added.

‘I’m easy to find’

One of the main purposes of campaign finance reports is to inform the public about how a candidate is paying for their campaign, including who their political donors are. Personal financial disclosure forms are related documents that unveil a politician’s sources of personal income, business interests and property.

Both sets of documents make elections and governance more forthright. They allow people to learn who is supporting a particular candidate and what that person’s conflicts of interest might be if they are elected.

“Reports are required to be filed by a certain day so that elections are transparent,”  Louisiana’s Ethics Administrator Kathleen Allen wrote in an email to a legislator the Illuminator obtained through the public records request for Marcelle’s documents.

The new law that Marcelle authored doesn’t help every person who files their campaign finance reports late. It only benefits candidates who are extremely delinquent.

Under her new law, those who are a few days overdue will face the same penalty as before. Legislative, parish-level council candidates and constables who are a month or more past deadline will now face fees that are 50% less.

Some of Marcelle’s fines have been for minor infractions; she missed a deadline by two days once. But in two cases, she filed reports more than a year after they were due, according to documents from the ethics board.

After a failed run for state representative in 2011, Marcelle didn’t turn in a campaign finance report due on Dec. 29, 2011, until after July 2013. She was also late with a 2012 report for her 2008 East Baton Rouge Metro Council campaign. It wasn’t turned in until 2015, according to notices from the Louisiana Board of Ethics.

In a more recent election, Marcelle submitted two campaign finance reports for her 2020 East Baton Rouge Parish mayor-president campaign weeks late. One set of documents was due July 6, 2020, and she submitted it Aug. 7, 2020. Another was due Nov. 25, 2020, and she filed it Feb. 28, 2021, according to ethics board records.

Her 2020 late race filings wouldn’t have been affected by the law Marcelle helped to pass, however. The Baton Rouge mayor-president is considered  a “major office” and subject to different campaign finance rules than ones for legislative and parish-level races she helped change.

Marcelle said she has often been late with filing ethics paperwork because she hasn’t receive written notices from the ethics board indicating her fines are piling up. For the 2020 election infractions, she blamed the late filing on the complications of doing business during COVID-19.

“The person responsible for the preparation of [Marcelle’s] campaign finance reports has closed her office due to the impact of COVID-19 and was unaware of the deadline and only filed the report once she was made aware it was past due,” Rodney Braxton, a business lobbyist who represented Marcelle before the ethics board, wrote in a letter pleading her case in 2021.

Documents from the ethics board back up Marcelle’s claims that she has not always received these warnings. In emails and letters, ethics board staff said some of the mail they sent Marcelle has bounced back to their office. In one email about the 2020 fines, the ethics staff acknowledged they likely had been using the wrong ZIP code for her mailing addresses.

The ethics board typically relies on addresses and other contact information the candidates provide themselves during the election sign-up period. Marcelle said these addresses are sometimes a temporary campaign headquarters location that shouldn’t be used over the long term.

“Once I find out [about a fine], I pay it,” Marcelle said.

She said she would like to see the state ethics staff make more of an effort to find a person before they accrue large late fees for failing to file paperwork.

In her case, Marcelle said the ethics staff could have easily approached her in person about her fines if they weren’t getting a response from the written warnings they sent. Marcelle sits on the Louisiana House and Governmental Affairs Committee, which oversees matters related to the ethics board and holds hearings most weeks during the regular legislative session.

“No one ever said they were trying to find me. I’m an elected official. I’m easy to find,” she said. “You all see me at the Capitol. … What do you mean you couldn’t get in touch with me?”

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Bipartisan support, including from Landry

Marcelle’s proposal to cut  fees for late campaign finance reports enjoyed overwhelming bipartisan support this year in the Louisiana Legislature.

It was also one of several bills lawmakers approved either to weaken government transparency measures or limit the ethics board’s tools for enforcement.

Marcelle first brought her proposal in 2022 . It passed the House on an 86-1 vote but failed on the Senate Floor. This year, the exact same bill got through the House in an 80-19 vote was approved in the Senate, 32-2.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry also went out of his way to sign Marcelle’s legislation. With several other new statutes this year, Landry withheld his endorsement and let them become law without his signature.

“Our governor certainly feels like the ethics department needed some fine tuning,” Marcelle said.

Landry has had his own run-ins with the ethics board.

The governor has spent a year in negotiations with board members over charges they brought against him for not disclosing a flight to Hawaii he took on a political donor’s private plane. In 2022, the board also chastised him for improperly using his campaign funds to pay off a vehicle purchase .

Though he never publicly pushed for Marcelle’s bill, the governor put pressure on legislators to pass other measures that restrict the public’s access to records about the governor’s activity. He also lobbied for a bill to give him and lawmakers more authority over the ethics board . It takes effect in January.

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