No fund exemption yet in 2nd District

If any 2nd Congressional District candidates are counting on millionaire Republican LaVar Christensen to top a federal personal donation level so they could collect more from supporters, they'll have to wait a few days longer.

Christensen — who has said previously that he'll spend his own money as needed to run an effective campaign — has timed his donations to keep his opponents' fund raising at bay.

When it was reported over the weekend that Christensen had given his campaign $600,000, Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and his top aides figured that Christensen's own giving had kicked in the so-called "millionaire's exemption" to Federal Election Commission law — and that Matheson and the third-party candidates in the 2nd District race could now raise more than $2,100 from individuals.

Under a complicated FEC rule, after any candidate gives his own campaign more than $350,000 in a defined "election cycle," that triggers special FEC reporting requirements and, experts say, can also allow his competitors to take individual donations of up to $6,300.

But the $600,000 figure "was in error," Christensen's campaign manager, Hayden Hill, told the Deseret Morning News Monday evening.

"That figure didn't come from me. It didn't come from LaVar," Hill said. "Maybe it came from some e-mail, but it isn't accurate."

Actually, Hill said, Christensen has been very careful to only give his campaign $340,000 since the June 27 primary election. "We have a $10,000 cushion" until the millionaire's exemption kicks in and Christensen's 2nd District opponents can start getting individual contributions of $6,300.

All told, as of the Sept. 30 FEC quarterly reporting deadline, Christensen has given in total $490,000 to his campaign, Hill said. The total includes $150,000 he donated in an earlier election cycle and is therefore not counted toward the millionaire's exemption.

He may give more — there are four weeks until the Nov. 7 election. And if he does, then the millionaire's exemption would kick in. At that time, said Hill, Christensen would comply with all FEC reporting and notification requirements.

Kirk Jowers, head of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics, an attorney and an FEC expert, said the millionaire's exemption is one of the least understood and confusing parts of the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law that took effect in the early 2000s.

Christensen, who is worth between $5 million and $10 million, has been very careful — perhaps even cagey — in how he's donated to his own campaign.