NU regent to pay $33,512 in fines
BY MATTHEW HANSEN / Lincoln Journal Star

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The University of Nebraska's newest regent broke several campaign finance laws, one of which will force him to pay the highest civil penalty the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission has ever assessed.

Regent Dave Hergert agreed to pay $33,512 in total fines in a settlement announced Friday, ending nearly six months of campaign finance trouble that has dogged the Mitchell businessmen following his November victory in a western Nebraska regent's race.

Most of the settlement penalizes the Hergert campaign for taking out $25,000 more in loans than is allowed by state law. It is the largest single fine since the state adopted campaign finance law in 1993.

The commission also found that he missed several reporting deadlines, one of which may have prevented his opponent, incumbent Don Blank of McCook, from accessing campaign finance money in the final weeks of the race.

The commission found Hergert guilty on each of the four charges Friday, thereby ratifying a settlement reached by William Howland, the commission's lawyer and head of the investigation, and Kermit Brashear, Hergert's lawyer, a state senator from Omaha and the speaker of the Legislature.

"I think what I'd say is that based on what the law is, the settlement agreement is a good result," said Frank Daley, the commission's director.

The overall fine doesn't address the issue of whether Hergert intentionally misled the commission during his regents race, as alleged by Blank, a state senator and a government watchdog group.

A charge of intentional deceit, which can result in criminal prosecution, has never been brought by the commission and wasn't investigated in the Hergert case, partially because current law makes the charge hard to prove, Daley said.

"We are an administrative state agency, and we're not involved with the public policy of what's a good law or what's a bad law," Daley said Friday. As the law is currently written, "unless someone thinks there's a smoking gun out there, there's not much of a case (for intentionally deceiving the commission)."

Hergert refused comment through a secretary at his office Friday afternoon.

The conclusion of Hergert's case doesn't answer the larger questions surrounding his actions while unseating a longtime incumbent, says Blank, whom Hergert defeated 56 percent to 44 percent.

Blank wants to know how Hergert estimated he'd spend $40,000 in the general election and then spend $90,000 during the actual race, much of it on television ads questioning Blank's competency in the campaign's last three weeks.

He wants to know what, if anything, will stop aspiring politicians from abusing what he believes are weak campaign finance laws in the future, as he says Hergert did.

For example, Blank says, Hergert was fined just $1,000, the maximum allowed under state law, for failing to report when he'd reached the 40 percent spending limit. That's the threshold that activates state campaign law and that would've released tens of thousands of dollars to Blank.

It's money Blank says he would've used to counteract Hergert's attacks during the campaign's last stretch.

"I don't have any doubt that they sat down during the campaign, saw that this was going to be the penalty, saw the benefits of ignoring the law and said, 'Just to heck with abiding by campaign finance law,'" Blank said Friday.

Brashear, Hergert's lawyer in the case and the speaker of the Legislature, did not return phone calls to his office Friday.

He and Hergert have stayed largely silent during the case, which began when Blank complained about not receiving the campaign finance money he felt he was due during the race's final week.

Hergert spent nearly $150,000 on the race, while Blank spent approximately a third of that amount.

Jack Gould of Common Cause Nebraska, a government watchdog group, and State Sen. Chris Beutler of Lincoln, a campaign finance reform advocate, both filed formal complaints against the Hergert campaign days after the election.

All of those charges, and one filed by the commission itself, were settled in the agreement announced Friday, Daley said.

Beutler told The Associated Press Friday that the fine was a "serious indictment" of Hergert's behavior and that Hergert "got off the hook" by escaping criminal charges.

"From Mr. Hergert's perspective, I'm sure he considered his purchase of the regent's seat cheap," Beutler said.

The presence of Brashear, who proposed legislation last year to do away with campaign finance law altogether, and Beutler, who has introduced several bills calling for stronger campaign finance laws, adds a political subtext to the case.

Daley said the presence of the two senators didn't harm the agency's investigation.

That investigation lasted about five months and involved following the paper trail Hergert had left during his campaign.

"These were serious allegations, and the commission did not take them lightly," said John Bergmeyer, the commission's chairman, in a release Friday. "In each case Mr. Hergert is being required to pay the maximum late filing fee or the maximum civil penalty."

But the commission chose not to examine whether Hergert intentionally deceived it, the most serious charge in the state's campaign finance law.

So, Daley was asked Friday, what's to stop a candidate from estimating one amount and then spending far more?

"Honor."