Sitting at an intersection in South Burlington is a white building that serves both business and political purposes for Scott Milne, the Republican looking to unseat U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy.
While the building at 40 Patchen Road has a sign out front featuring the red logo of Milne Travel, it is also listed as the official campaign address in finance reports filed with the Federal Election Commission.
By using his business address as a campaign hub, Milne runs the risk of violating federal campaign finance laws.
Candidates for federal office are prohibited from taking corporate contributions — including not only money but also in-kind gifts like items or services.
A corporation, like Milne Travel, is prohibited from donating any assets to a federal campaign. An FEC list of prohibited donations includes the use of corporate email lists as well as “office space, telephones, computers, typewriters, copy machines and furniture.”
A campaign can legally gain access to corporate assets by paying full market price for them. Milne’s campaign finance reports through the end of July show no recorded payments to Milne Travel.
Paul Ryan, a campaign expert at the Campaign Legal Center, said that raises questions.
“If (a) campaign did not pay fair market value for office space it would constitute an illegal in-kind corporate donation,” Ryan said. “The candidate is required to pay the corporate owner of his office space as well as for any office equipment used.”
Milne said he knows that any in-kind gift of rent or the use of supplies from Milne Travel would be against federal law and said his campaign has abided by the rules. He said he was made aware of the rules surrounding corporate donations during a briefing earlier this year by an election lawyer in Washington, D.C.
The reason no payments to his company for office space or supplies are listed, Milne said, was that his campaign has only recently become truly active. He said his campaign officially set up an attic office at the Patchen Road site in early August — after the primary — and that his next FEC report will show a $1,000 rent payment to Milne Travel. The next reporting period covers the month of August.
The FEC considers campaigns active once they raise $5,000, a threshold Milne passed on June 18 when he donated $5,100 to his campaign.
Milne said his campaign has paid for a mobile phone line that is not connected to his travel agency, adding that no Milne Travel computers or other equipment is being used for political purposes.
“In our first financial report it required we use a mailing address, so we used Patchen Road,” Milne said. “Most days that Patchen Road office isn’t being used by the campaign.”
Spending data for July — a period when Milne said the campaign didn’t have much going on — show a small campaign apparatus.
That month the Milne campaign spent $16 on a website, $620.92 on tech support and $355.75 on banners and signs, among other expenses. The campaign also spent $1,000 to purchase unspecified “assets” from Milne’s 2014 campaign for governor.
In addition to the spending, Milne raised $26,656 in July.
He registered his campaign with the secretary of state’s office May 26 and has made fairly frequent political attacks against Leahy since then.
A June 16 news release from the Milne campaign called for outlawing “federal funds being used to build anything named for incumbent senators or members of Congress.”
The line between Milne and his company was blurred earlier in the election season when Milne Travel spent $19,850 to place 114 spots on WCAX-TV. The ads prominently featured the candidate, who spoke of the importance of community service.
In addition, Milne’s 2016 voter email list was imported into the Milne Travel online database, and the page to unsubscribe from the list contained a URL for Milne Travel.
Elise Milne, the candidate’s daughter, who is serving as a volunteer campaign manager, said the campaign list was accidentally loaded onto the company’s site.
“It was an oversight,” she said in an email. “To your larger question of whether we have taken Milne Travel email addresses and imported them to the campaign, absolutely not.”
Scott Milne’s campaign has been almost exclusively focused on the image of Leahy as a career politician, and he has frequently derided the millions in the Vermont Democrat’s campaign war chest.
“I don’t buy that voters will think my low-budget campaign — running it out of an attic on Patchen Road — is a bigger story than him running a $6 million campaign,” Scott Milne said. “A low budget is our strategy.”
Indeed, his total campaign expenses through July are just over $10,000, half of which was spent on a poll. In that same period, Leahy spent $456,000.
Jay Tilton, a Leahy spokesman, asserted that Milne was not in compliance with election law.
“The fact Mr. Milne runs his campaign out of his corporate office, in clear violation of election law, speaks volumes about Mr. Milne’s campaign,” Tilton said in a statement. “Even Donald Trump reimburses his businesses when he uses them for political purposes.”
Milne’s 2014 gubernatorial try was also run on a shoestring budget, but his message resonated with enough Vermonters that he came within a hair of unseating Gov. Peter Shumlin.
In Vermont races, corporate contributions are allowed, and Milne’s 2014 campaign finance reports show he received at least $2,000 in cash from Milne Travel. The reports also show the campaign rented the Patchen Road office space for $1,000 a month. The campaign began renting the space in July, but reports show payments only through September 2014.
“We are reviewing the record, and if there was an oversight or error, we will fix it,” Elise Milne said Tuesday.
The FEC can levy civil fines against a candidate if it finds any instance of an inappropriate corporate contribution. According to FEC language, the size of the fine would depend on whether the candidate willfully ignored the law but often represents the size of the inappropriate contribution received.
An FEC official pointed to the appropriate statute but declined to comment on specific candidates.
