Error in Sen. Rivers’ contribution report draws complaint

The state’s Public Disclosure Commission is considering a complaint from a conservative Clark County blogger asking questions about Sen. Ann Rivers’ campaign contributions.

Rivers’ campaign contribution account recently went from listing more than $255,000 to $80,000.

The La Center Republican senator said there was a simple explanation: “For three years, my PDC (public disclosure commission) reports have been perfect, and then my preparer retired and gave her clients to another preparer who didn’t adequately do the job. I’ve retained a new preparer who has been working closely with the PDC for nearly six months to get everything squared away.”

Lori Anderson, a spokeswoman with the commission, said she is not at liberty to discuss the case in great detail, but she did say the state is working with Rivers to amend her reports. Rivers’ account, Anderson said, made it look like Rivers had raised a lot more money than she actually had.

“Our staff will have to decide now how to resolve it,” Anderson said.

The commission looked into the case after Kelly Hinton, the blogger, filed the complaint.

Anderson said she often sees inflated campaign contributions when a candidate forgets to separate their previous campaign account and start at zero when opening a new one.

“She potentially started out with the wrong amount,” Anderson said.

Rivers said the person charged with entering the data was not well versed in navigating the commission’s website, and the error was compounded over time.

Anderson said now that the problem has been spotted and resolved, the commission will examine whether any next steps are necessary.

“And now, we’re moving on to step two: Does this merit enforcement or not?” Anderson said.

Anderson said it’s important the documents are transparent and accurate.

“I would say about 100 campaigns a year have some sort of problems with tracking,” Anderson said.

Hinton wrote on his blog that Rivers has known the numbers overstated her contributions but left them up “as a shield against those who might consider taking her on.”

Rivers called the assertion laughable.

“Good candidates are not dissuaded by PDC reports,” she said.