Under Tennessee law, a retiring legislator may keep for his personal use every dollar remaining in his campaign warchest. At least that’s how I read the series of events regarding State Senator Jerry Cooper.

Here’s the recap: Last month Senator Cooper was found at fault in a civil proceeding by the Tennessee Registry of Election Finance of misappropriating $95,000 of campaign funds for personal use. The TREF awarded him the largest penalty ever assessed: $120,000. At first glance, the ruling appeared to be a good one since it meant that he was assessed more in fines than he was able to skim from his campaign funds.

But here’s the catch. The only cudgel that the TREF holds over anyone found guilty of misconduct is that they cannot run for office again until the fine is paid. Senator Cooper announced today that he is retiring at the end of this term instead of paying the fine–or repaying the misappropriation of funds. Thus, Jerry Cooper has profited by giving himself a nearly $100,000 retirement gift.

Kudos* to State Rep. Stacey Campfield who on his blog predicted that Sen. Cooper would employ this loophole in the law to avoid paying his fine.

*Or maybe curses instead of kudos are in order for Rep. Campfield, if it was his post that gave Sen. Cooper the sneaky idea.

(ht: Volunteer Voters who has much more here.)

UPDATE:

Bill Hobbs notes that Sen Cooper has another $230,000 in his campaign account–and nothing to prevent him from taking every dime for himself.

2nd UPDATE:

The Tennessean publishes the assurances of Cooper’s attorney that “The senator cannot escape the fine by retiring from political service.” They further add that the TREF can file a civil lawsuit to recover the fine.

The Nashville City Paper notes that Cooper has appealed the size of the fine to the TREF, which can re-address the matter at its next meeting December 12th. Lieutenant Governor Ron Ramsey argues that the fine should not be reduced for the very reasons pointed out above:

If you didn’t have a fine like that, then somebody, in theory, could empty out their campaign account when they knew they weren’t going to run for reelection again knowing it was going to be a relatively small fine . . . It’s there as a deterrent and it does not need to be reduced.

I would add that the fine is a deterrent if and only if it can be enforced. I would further add, that as Bill Hobbs pointed out, the TREF can only assess a maximum penalty of $10,000. The only reason Cooper’s fine was higher was because he misappropriated funds via 23 separate checks. In this case, Cooper could theoretically pay the fine from his nearly quarter-million-dollar campaign account and still pocket the rest with a single check.

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