Pesquiera Fined for Campaign Violation

Charlene Pesquiera, State Senator from LD26, was hit with a $1000 fine for failing to report campaign donations as a non-Clean Elections candidate in 2006. As the candidate who had never bothered to register to vote, Charlene was coaxed into running with no experience but still managed to win by a few hundred votes. Being new to the process, she may not have understood that withholding the information for a month prevents the opponent from receiving Clean Elections matching funds in a timely manner thereby negating the equalizing intent of the law. In this case, however, candidate Al Melvin did not appear to be impacted as he had already received his maximum match for the campaign.

Several inside sources have repeated Charlene's statements that she had no intention of running for re-election this year, although the Democrat party has indicated otherwise. There are no indications at this point that this situation will have an effect on her decision.