PA-06: Jim Gerlach’s $120,000 Gaffe

While we noted in our round-up that Republican Jim Gerlach of Pennsylvania’s 6th district finished the first quarter of 2007 having raised $213,000 and holding $107,000 cash-on-hand, we didn’t take into account this golden blunder in the calculus:

The Federal Election Commission has fined Rep. Jim Gerlach’s campaign committee $120,000 for filing inaccurate financial disclosure reports in 2004 and 2005, an unusually large penalty that puts a significant dent in the lawmaker’s re-election coffers.

The commission, in announcing the fine Wednesday, said the 6th District Republican’s campaign over-reported its contributions by $2.2 million in several of its quarterly statements during the two years, and misreported about $9,000 in refunded donations in late 2005. It also said Gerlach failed to itemize $9,000 worth of contributions in his 2004 year-end report.

The fine, which commissioners voted 5-0 to assess as part of an agreement with Gerlach’s campaign to close the case, is the third largest issued against a sitting U.S. lawmaker since 1980, according to the FEC. It resulted from a complaint filed in 2005 by Gerlach’s opponent in the past two elections, Democrat Lois Murphy.

[…]

The fine, though, does mean Gerlach is already about $300,000 behind where he was at this period in the last election cycle, when he raised nearly $400,000 in the first quarter of the year. He and Murphy ended up waging one of the most expensive congressional races in the country.

So Gerlach essentially returns to square one.  It may be schadenfreude, but… I can’t resist: ha-ha!

Race Tracker: PA-06