PACE Cleared of any Campaign Finance Violations
On October 16, 2023 PACE and two of PACE’s board members had campaign finance complaints filed by Melissa Winefeldt Platte Canyon School District School Board former Treasure current Vice President against PACE and personally against Heather Prewitt and Cynthia Sherriff for their contributions to
The allegations against PACE were:
Missing or improper disclaimer, failure to register a committee.
From Ms. Winefeldt's complaint :
“According to the Colorado CPF Manual, Part 2, Issues Committee: If you are working to support
or oppose a ballot measure, you may need to register and report as an Issue Committee or
Small-Scale Issue Committee. Colorado law defines an issue committee as any non-natural
person or two or more natural persons, that has: A major purpose of supporting or opposing any
ballot issue or ballot question; and Accepted or made contributions or expenditures in excess of
$200 to support or oppose any ballot issue or ballot question. PACE nor Plattecanyonk12.com are registered issue committees and are both campaigning against a ballot question, 4A, for Platte Canyon School District RE-1 in Park County, CO. This is reckless action that is deliberately attempting to influence a vote and there must be recourse.”
The allegations against PlatteCanyonK12 were:
Failure to report an expenditure, Missing or improper disclaimer, failure to register a committee.
From Ms. Winefeldt's complaint :
“"Platte Canyon k12" is not a registered entity with the SOS and it is not an issue committee
registered with TRACER, violation of section 2(10) of Article XVVIII of the state constitution (also
see SB 22-237.)”
Findings from the Elections Division of the Secretary of State:
“Because both Complaint 2023-45 and Complaint 2023-46 stem from the same set of operative
facts, and because the analysis underlying this motion to dismiss necessarily involves all of the
respondents, the Division also here consolidates the two complaints into Consolidated Complaint
2023-45, 46.
I. No respondent qualifies as an issue committee.
An issue committee is “any person, other than a natural person, or any group of two or more
persons, including natural persons” that “has accepted or made contributions or expenditures in
excess of two hundred dollars to support or oppose any ballot issue or ballot question” and “has a
major purpose of supporting or opposing any ballot issue or ballot question.”35……..
To summarize the above-stated law, a non-natural person, or a group of two or more people, must
meet two conditions to qualify as an issue committee:
(1) They must receive and spent $200 to support or oppose a ballot issue or question; and
(2) They must have a “major purpose” of supporting a ballot issue or question.
Here, respondents met neither of the two conditions.
a. No respondent (or group of respondents) spent and received $200 to support
or oppose a ballot issue or question.
First, the evidence indicates that Respondents did not need to register an issue committee because
no Respondent (or group of Respondents) received and spent more than $200 to support or oppose
Ballot Issue 4A.
b. Respondent PACE does not have a major purpose of supporting or opposing
any ballot issue or question.
In the alternative, the Division notes that, even if it had received and spent $200, PACE would still
not qualify as an issue committee because the organization does not have a “major purpose” of
supporting or opposing a ballot initiative.
II. No respondent was required to include disclaimers on any communication.
Complainant’s final allegation is that Respondents failed to include the proper “paid for by”
disclaimers on their communications.
Here, Complainants allege that there were no disclaimers posted on Respondents’ websites. As
indicated above, Respondents collectively have spent $120 on domain names and website hosting
subscriptions—well under $1,000 in total, let alone on a single communication, dating back to the
beginning of 2022. Accordingly, the Division finds that Respondents did not fail to include
disclaimers on communications because they were never required to do so. Ultimately, the Division determines that there is not sufficient evidence to find Respondents violated Colorado campaign finance laws as alleged in the Complaint. For the reasons stated above, the Division moves to dismiss the Complaint on the basis that there is not sufficient evidence to support a finding that Respondent violated Colorado campaign finance laws as alleged in the Complaint.
On February 15, 2024 the Deputy Secretary of State granted the Motion to Dismiss.
From the Order of dismissal:
“Because there is insufficient evidence to support a finding that Respondents violated Colorado campaign finance laws, the Deputy Secretary grants the Division’s Motion to Dismiss.”
Ms. Winefeldt would have an awareness of campaign finance rules as a result of her involvement with the Platte Canyon Committee for Student Support (PCCSS). The amount of donations and expenditures received and spent by PCCSS necessitated the committee’s compliance with campaign finance filing requirements. Their filings can be found at the SOS’ TRACER. In addition to local donations including receipts from Ms. Winefeldt, the committee received funding from multiple vendors involved the bond issue and renovation project including:
Stifel Nicolaus Bond Brokerage $4,000
Artaic Group District Owner’s Rep $ 500
RTA, Inc. District Architect $1,500
The largest expenditures of the Committee were those in excess of $3,500 to a Denver based advertising firm.
After many hours of preparing and providing documentation as a result of the complaint, PACE, Ms. Sherriff and Ms. Prewitt are happy to be exonerated by the Secretary of State’s office.
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