Half of candidates skip disclosures
Staff writer
Half of eight candidates running for Marion County commissioner did not list any financial holdings or income sources on their statement of substantial interest required by state law to run for local office.
The form is designed to identify potential conflicts of interest to help voters make informed decisions.
It asks about each candidate and his or her spouse’s ownership interests, jobs, leadership positions in businesses or organizations, and receipt of fees, commissions, and gifts.
“Intentional failure to file or intentionally filing a false statement is a class B misdemeanor,” said Tara Kaberline, statement of substanial interest coordinator for the Kansas Public Disclosure Commission.
Yet, she said, the commission has no jurisdiction to enforce filings in local elections.
County Clerk Ashley Herpich, whose office processes the forms locally, referred the question of who vets and enforces candidate filings to county counselor Brad Jantz. He was unable to answer before deadline.
Herpich said only said that the filings are “sent to the state.”
The enforcement gap and some candidates’ disregard for or misunderstanding of the requirements amounts to a failure of transparency for the public, according to some commissioner candidates and an attorney who monitors campaign ethics.
“There’s a clear loophole in Kansas’ disclosure system,” Danielle Caputo, senior legal counsel at Campaign Legal Center in Washington, said, “that should be addressed at the very least because voters deserve to have all the information presented to them, and that’s the purpose of these laws and the purpose of these forms. And it seems like currently that’s not happening.”
Incumbent commissioner Kent Becker, who did complete his form, said he thought someone was paying attention to them.
“This will be my third election,” he said, “and I just took for granted that the state vetted them and then turned around and sent us whatever disclosures we had to fill out. If they don’t, I guess no one does.”
Candidates Tom Britain, Randall Eitzen, Dan Holub, and Amy Soyez checked “nothing to report” on all financial disclosure boxes, suggesting that they and their spouses (if any) had no ownership and no income. Holub did list his leadership role on the St. Luke hospital board.
Incumbents Becker, Dave Crofoot, and Jonah Gehring all appeared to have filled out the forms fully.
After the Record approached all the candidates for comment on the filings, Amy Soyez refiled her form, telling the Record in an email that she had a case of busy “mom-brain, and I filled it out wrong.”
Her amended form went from nothing at all to report to listing her husband, Jeff Soyez, as the county sheriff, over whom commissioners have financial oversight.
She also reported her employment at a pharmaceutical company and an online clothing retailer, ownership of a mutual fund and a retirement fund, and fees or commissions from windfarm operator Orsted.
Holub said Tuesday that he consulted with Herpich and would refile his form to list his military pension as income.
“I live off military retirement,” he said. “I’ve got a 20-acre patch at the house, I just never considered that because [a home] is not even reportable, and I don’t make any money off of it.”
Britain said he didn’t list his retirement income or a parcel of land that public records show is worth an assessed value of $16,000.
“I couldn’t think of anything I have that would influence or make a difference on my decisions as commissioner,” he said.
Eitzen did not respond to Record requests to discuss his “nothing to report” filing, but public documents suggest that a trust in his name owns 59 parcels of agricultural land with a combined appraised value of about $1.3 million.
Listing a substantial interest does not, itself, constitute a conflict of interest or a disqualification for holding office, Caputo said.
“The point of sharing a conflict, particularly at the candidacy level, is so that the public has the ability to get a full picture of who you are and what your potential conflicts are and to decide if they like your ideas and your candidacy more than they are concerned about that conflict.
“I would say it’s unusual to have nothing to disclose, because typically people have have jobs at the very least or would be employed previously, which is not obviously disqualifying one way or the other, but to say that you have had no job and then you have no previous compensation, that you don’t have a business … that’s just unusual.”
Anyone can apply for copies of the candidate filings at the county clerk’s office.
It is free to get electronic copies, and 25 cents a page for printed copies.