Money Trail

Wrist slaps for running mates

A month after their crushing defeat, Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro each endured another public indignity last week. The Mondale campaign was charged with violation of federal campaign spending laws and agreed to pay the U.S. Treasury $398,140 to settle the case. Meanwhile, the House Ethics Committee found that Ferraro had violated the Ethics in Government Act by failing to disclose details of her family's finances.

The Mondale controversy began during last spring's Democratic primaries. Colorado Senator Gary Hart, Mondale's closest rival for the nomination, accused his opponent of using "delegate committees" to pump money illegally into his campaign. The 130 groups, organized by local supporters seeking to become convention delegates, claimed that they were independent of the Mondale organization and thus exempt both from federal limits on national campaign contributions and from the candidate's own pledge to reject money from Political Action Committees. Hart's success in turning the tactic into a campaign issue forced Mondale to disband the committees last April.

After sitting on the case for eight months, the Federal Election Commission ruled that the Mondale campaign received $350,000 in improper contributions. Mondale's payment to the Treasury also included $29,640 in federal matching funds and $18,500 in fines. Mondale's advisers said they felt no law had been violated, but concluded that accepting the ruling would be less costly than challenging it in court.

Ferraro got off even more lightly. "I consider myself completely vindicated," she said following the announcement of the Ethics Committee's findings. The six Democrats and six Republicans ruled that Ferraro should not have claimed exemption from reporting the business dealings of her husband, Real Estate Developer John Zaccaro, in her congressional financial disclosures. Ferraro would qualify only if she had no knowledge of her husband's finances, had no role in their development and had not benefited from them. This, said the committee, was not the case. But the 47-page report concluded that she acted without "deceptive intent." Since Congress has adjourned for the year and Ferraro is leaving Congress in January, the House will not have to consider whether to take disciplinary action.

In the course of its investigation, the committee discovered that 463 checks were missing from the bank statements supplied to it by Ferraro and her husband. The report said that "a fair percentage of the missing checks are for sums in excess of $1,000 and up to a high of $22,078.35." The committee did not question Ferraro on the missing checks and the Congresswoman offered no explanation.