Sandy Hook families’ NRA campaign violation complaint being investigated

NEWTOWN — The state Elections Enforcement Commission is investigating a complaint by family members of Sandy Hook shooting victims that the National Rifle Association improperly funded dozens of state legislative campaigns.

Family members got involved in the case when they were approached by researchers who had already won a similar case against the NRA in Rhode Island.

“Clearly in Rhode Island, the NRA failed to follow the rules,” said Po Murray, the mother of four former Sandy Hook Elementary School students, and the executive director of the Newtown Action Alliance, a gun-safety group.

“We believe they broke the same laws in Connecticut.”

Nonsense, an NRA spokeswoman responded last week.

“The NRA has submitted all the documents to the Connecticut elections board showing that all the money raised and spent in Connecticut was done so properly and within the law,” NRA spokeswoman Catherine Mortensen said.

“This completely baseless complaint is politically motivated harassment of the NRA by gun-control advocates.”

The Election Enforcement Commission confirmed Wednesday it was investigating a complaint brought in August by family members, including Carlos Soto, of Stratford, whose sister Victoria Soto was killed trying to protect her first-grade students at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.

The families charge that the NRA funneled about $11,000 in so-called independent expenditures to oppose Gov. Dannel P. Malloy last fall. They also claim that $9,000 in federal PAC money was improperly funneled to 33 state House and Senate candidates of both political parties from 2003 until 2005.

The complaint also charges that the NRA federal PAC improperly transferred $20,000 to its Connecticut PAC in 2006, where the funds were “largely unused” until the Connecticut PAC made independent expenditures in the 2014 governor’s race, without first setting up a special Connecticut account.

The NRA disputes the charges. Mortensen said the $9,000 in campaign donations were made by the organization’s Connecticut campaign, and were not transferred from the national fund.

She said the $20,000 spent to defeat Malloy was an independent expenditure allowed by law.

The investigation will be completed by an elections officer who will make a recommendation to the elections commission to dismiss the complaint, to ask the two sides to settle the complaint, or to assess a fine, commission spokesman Joshua Foley said.

In 2014, the NRA lost its case before the Rhode Island state Board of Elections, which found 65 cases of improper NRA contributions totaling nearly $164,000 that went to state and local political candidates. The NRA paid $63,000 in penalties, the second-largest fine of its kind in Rhode Island history.

Murray said Connecticut’s decision to investigate the complaint is encouraging.

“This is not a validation of our work yet, but we are thrilled that an investigation is moving forward,” Murray said.

rryser@newstimes.com; 203-731-3342