Rep. Steven Jackson (Allison Allsop)
Freshman state legislators typically promise to bring back more money to their districts or to pursue broader policy.
But the very first two bills Rep. Steven Jackson, D-Shreveport, authored during his first regular in the Louisiana Legislature had an unusual target for a new lawmaker: Louisiana’s Board of Ethics.
Jackson’s first bill reduces how often elected officials have to file their personal financial disclosure forms with the state ethics agency. His second one dramatically cuts the fines lobbyists have to pay if they file paperwork late. Both became law this month.
Jackson also successfully got his colleagues in the Louisiana House of Representatives to sponsor a study of the state’s ethics and campaign finance laws and produce a report on the topic by next April.
His interest in the ethics board follows five years of angry exchanges between Jackson and ethics staff over financial penalties he has accrued while running for office.
Since his first race for the Caddo Parish Commission in 2015, Jackson has racked up $10,080 in late fees after failing to file or improperly submitting 12 campaign finance and personal disclosure reports.
The Illuminator acquired copies of correspondence among Jackson, ethics board staff and the attorney general’s office through a public records request made to the state ethics board.
“You all are nothing more than a debt collection agency that harasses and bullies elected officials who don’t have the means to defend themselves,” Jackson wrote as Caddo Parish commissioner in an email to Ethics Administrator Kathleen Allen in October 2022.
Campaign finance reports and personal financial disclosure paperwork are the primary way the public knows who is donating to a political campaign and how a candidate supports themselves ahead of an election. When they are turned in weeks or months late, as Jackson has sometimes done, it can rob voters of their ability to learn about a candidate’s donors or their personal financial interests before having to cast ballots.
Jackson has repeatedly said he believes the fines for late reporting are too high. He declined to comment directly to a reporter about this story. Instead, a person identified as his assistant campaign manager, Micheal Murphy, responded to questions sent to Jackson’s campaign email account.
“Rep Jackson believe [sic] the ethics board consist [sic] of individuals who have never had to run a campaign or hold political office,” the email sent to the Illuminator earlier this month reads. “They lack empathy and understanding in their approach.”
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Grievances going back years
Over several exchanges from 2019 to 2023, Jackson accused the ethics staff of harassing him, treating him unfairly and not being sensitive to the impact of a record-breaking winter storm that hit Northwest Louisiana in February 2021 .
“There is no place on this form to list a forgiven loan. I think that is bulls–t. You all will harass someone over loans they forgave themselves,” Jackson said in a handwritten note included on the front page of a February 2021 campaign finance report.
The particular form Jackson was turning in only has to be filed when someone has missed previous deadlines.
“We are in a state of emergency without power and without water. This date could have been pushed back,” Jackson continued in a typed note included on the next page of the same report.
“This was done from a smartphone to avoid a fine. This shows no regard for our health and well being.”
Two weeks later, Jackson made the same complaint in an email to the ethics board about having to file that campaign finance report.
“You may not be aware or you may not care, but the citizens of the region experienced a 100 year snow storm that caused severe disruption in every level of service as noted on the form submitted,” Jackson wrote.
“Our office is well aware of the storm and the devastating effect it had on people, and to say that our office does not care is not correct,” Allen responded to Jackson’s email on behalf of the ethics department. “We have talked with and assisted many people with the filing of reports since that time. However, we are reaching out to people who have still not filed the required reports.”
In spite of his numerous email exchanges, the state has had to go to great lengths to extract some of the fines Jackson has owed over the past five years.
In 2019, the ethics board filed a short-lived lawsuit to block Jackson from qualifying to run for his second term on the Caddo Parish Commission over $3,600 the board said he owed in late fees from his 2015 race. State law requires candidates for public office to have paid their penalties in full before they enter a new election cycle.
The lawsuit, filed on Aug. 15, 2019, was withdrawn the next day after Jackson hastily met with the board and paid some of the fines he owed. The board conceded that Jackson might not have received notices that more recent campaign finance reports were late.
Jackson went on to win that 2019 Caddo Commission election in October as an unopposed candidate.
That victory did not stop Jackson from lashing out at the ethics board staff a year later, however, when staff members told him he still owed additional fines from missed 2018 deadlines.
“What is this about and why am I receiving this? I paid you all those fees and owe nothing. Something must be wrong in your system,” Jackson wrote to Allen on the ethics board staff on July 14, 2020.
Two years later, another tense email exchange involving Allen, Jackson and the attorney general’s staff indicated he still hadn’t paid $3,260 in fines for his overdue 2018 campaign reports.
“You all are going to continue to harass police jurors, school board members, and local public officials who will one day eventually become state legislators. Probably sooner rather than later,” Jackson wrote in a 2022 email, a year before he won his statehouse election.
A few months later, the attorney general’s office garnished more than $1,000 per month from Jackson’s paychecks in May, June and July in order to recover some of the late fees he owed from the 2018 election cycle. The attorney general’s staff collects ethics fees that have gone unpaid for several weeks.
By that time, Jackson’s costs had ballooned to not only include the initial penalties but also interest on the original fines, attorney fees, court costs and a commission to the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office for performing the wage garnishment, according to a 2023 email from Amy Richard Easley, who worked on Jackson’s collections for the attorney general’s office.
“You can’t be serious. If the AG office hasn’t sent the money they collected it’s my fault? What kind of game are y’all playing. Those fines have been paid. You got what you needed. Why are y’all jerking with me?” Jackson wrote to the ethics staff and Easley on Aug. 4, 2023 after being told he had to settle his fines in order to qualify for his legislative race.
Jackson eventually paid the remaining penalties about a week after sending that email on Aug. 9, 2023. The next day, he signed up to run for the Louisiana House of Representatives, Allen said.
Even after turning over thousands of dollars in fines, Jackson continued to miss campaign report deadlines, improperly submit reports and rack up new penalties. Since that email exchange a year ago with Easley, he has accrued $3,220 in new penalties.
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How Jackson changed state ethics laws
One of the new state laws Jackson authored exempts candidates from filing personal financial disclosure forms if they are already an elected official and have the same form already on file with the ethics department. The paperwork, which is due a few days after candidates sign up to run for office, includes information about a candidate’s income, property ownership and business interests for the public to inspect.
Jackson has never turned in the personal financial disclosure documents due after he signed up for the 2023 election and now faces a $2,500 fine. He didn’t think it was necessary because he had already submitted the same information to the ethics board as a Caddo Parish commissioner.
The new law is not retroactive and won’t erase Jackson’s current fine.
Jackson’s second ethics law change dramatically cuts fines and fees for lobbyists who file paperwork about their clients late with the ethics board. It is similar to another new statute Rep. Denise Marcelle, D-Baton Rouge, sponsored.
Under the old law, lobbyists faced a $50-per-day automatic fine that maxed out at $1,500 in total for filing paperwork disclosing their clients late. The ethics board could also assess an additional $10,000 fine on top of the $1,500 maximum.
Jackson’s legislation lowers the per-day ceiling penalty to $500 and reduces the additional fine amount to $1,000.
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