Did attorney general violate rules?
Edmondson used his funds to help state auditor's campaign.

By Nolan Clay, Staff Writer
Daily Oklahoman, April 7, 2007

Attorney General Drew Edmondson may have violated ethics rules when he spent $500 from his campaign on a golfing fundraiser for state Auditor Jeff McMahan's campaign, officials said Friday.

"It requires explanation," the Ethics Commission executive director, Marilyn Hughes, said of the May 2005 expense. "On the face of it, it looks like a violation."

Edmondson, a Democrat, said Friday he thought at the time the expense was OK but will reimburse his own campaign with personal funds if the commission requires it.

"We had a theory we were operating under that if it served a political campaign purpose for me that I could spend campaign money to do it," Edmondson said. "This was an event that I went to and participated in and met people and campaigned and I wrote a campaign check.

"If my interpretation is not correct, we will do whatever the Ethics Commission tells us to do to make it right," he said

Lawmaker questioned donation

State Rep. Mike Reynolds, R-Oklahoma City, pointed out the questionable donation Friday, one day after Edmondson's assistants filed criminal charges against an Oklahoma County commissioner and others over an alleged excessive campaign-contribution scheme.

Reynolds said, "Attorney General Edmondson apparently doesn't have a good understanding of our complicated ethics laws. ... I know that he will have a way of correcting this oversight."

A state candidate cannot use his campaign funds to donate to another state candidate's campaign, according to ethics rules. A candidate, however, can use his own personal funds to donate to another candidate.

Edmondson said he paid $500 for a four-person team to participate in McMahan's golf tournament on June 1, 2005, at a Shawnee course.

He said the expense was for "the cart, green fees and that kind of stuff but part of it, certainly, would have gone to McMahan's campaign."

Hughes suggested it would have been better if Edmondson's campaign had paid the golf course directly to attend the event rather than McMahan's campaign.