Federal election officials say former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy illegally profited personally from about $250,000 spent by the Board of Elections at a luxury resort in Rancho Palos Verdes while he was a congressional leader. We are being asked to investigate whether this is the case.

Two Election Commission employees filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission. Terranea Resort It cited a Times investigation published in December that showed the two McCarthy commissions spent about $240,000 on seaside hotels and spas in the two-and-a-half years ending in 2018. The commission reported to the FEC that the costs were for lodging and meals. And a spokesperson for the McCarthy campaign told the Times that this was for “our annual event,” which he also described as a “PAC retreat.”

The five-page complaint echoes one another, noting that Mr. McCarthy did not provide the FEC or the Times with a more detailed explanation of Terranea's spending, including the number of these withdrawals.

“Thus, this only increases questions about the actual use of these funds,” the complaint states, noting that the payments were “not for any legitimate PAC or campaign, but to personally enrich Mr. McCarthy.” “It may have been carried out in the future,” he added. The complaint also names McCarthy's committee and its treasurer, Jill Thomson.

McCarthy spokesman Drew Florio did not respond to Times requests for interviews with the former congressman and Thompson or for comment from them regarding the complaints. An FEC spokesperson said the agency does not comment on requests for investigations or whether investigations have been initiated.

The complaint was filed by Terranea employees Antonio Rodriguez and David Gomez Martinez, a law firm representing Unite Here Local 11, a labor union embroiled in a fight to organize workers at the resort. Submitted through. Rodriguez and Gómez Martinez are supporters of the unionization movement.

The two employees said in the complaint that “during the period the payments were made, they worked at the resort in various roles in the banquet and catering departments and had no knowledge of the events hosted or held. I had no recollection of it,” he said. on behalf of Congressman McCarthy or his committee of resorts. ” The complaint was notarized and signed under penalty of perjury.

They point out that Terranea's owners, including Robert J. Rowe, the founder of the company that developed the resort, are major financiers of the McCarthy Commission. The lawsuit alleges that the donations show that the relationship between Mr. McCarthy and the hotel owners is “very cordial.”

“The FEC needs to investigate where this political money is being spent,” Rodriguez said in an email to the Times. Gomez Martinez declined to comment.

Mr. Rowe did not respond to interview requests made through his office.

A Times investigation found that most of the money Mr. McCarthy spent on Terranea came from Majority Committee PAC, a poorly regulated leadership PAC that he controlled. The newspaper also reported that the Bakersfield Republican Leadership PAC spent more than $1 million on hotels, commercial air travel and restaurants from 2012 to last June, according to FEC records.

This includes spending by the leadership PACs of seven other members of Congress who held top positions in the party's House and Senate during all or part of that period, according to a Times analysis of FEC filings. This is more than double the total amount. A historic insurrection led by far-right Republicans ousted McCarthy from his post as speaker in October and forced him to resign from Congress in December.

Leadership PACs like McCarthy's are subject to less spending controls than other campaign accounts. The legal guardrails for PACs are so weak that the FEC decided last year that there are no restrictions on using committee funds for personal spending. As a result, lawmakers can use PACs as slush funds to undertake lavish lifestyles. good government advocates say.

But federal law prohibits lawmakers from using funds from other campaign accounts for personal purposes. About $116,000 of McCarthy's spending on Terranea came from one of his campaign committees. Most of that amount, $68,000, was reported to the FEC for meals and lodging.

Between 2015 and 2018, while McCarthy was House Majority Leader, two of McCarthy's committees made a combined 20 payments to Terranea. Most were listed under the “accommodation” expense category, and 11 were for even amounts, such as $7,500 or $10,000. The report did not explain why the amount was denominated in dollars.

Mr. McCarthy's spending at Terranea stands out among current and former Congressional leaders, as much of the money reportedly goes toward lodging. And while McCarthy's FEC filings don't indicate why Terranea spending was so high over a two-and-a-half year period and then stopped, one of McCarthy's campaign committees said it was reported spending about $470 on food at Terranea in 2017.

The FEC does not require politicians to disclose recipients, dates, amounts, and many details of spending beyond general categories in their financial reports. Mr. McCarthy's records do not say who stayed or ate at Terranea courtesy of the committee, and there is no breakdown of how much the PAC spent on rooms per night. There is no mention of the type of room or how many rooms were rented. Records offer few clues as to whether the spending was related to specific fundraisers or other campaign efforts.

“The costs were for lodging, catering and event room rentals associated with PAC's withdrawal,” Florio, McCarthy's spokeswoman, said in a statement to the Times in October.

He did not respond to additional questions about the number of people who attended the events or the specific costs allocated to each event.

Former members of Congress, including San Diego County Republican Duncan Hunter, were convicted of violating a law that prohibits the personal use of funds from campaign accounts that are not leadership PACs. Former Rep. George Santos (R.N.Y.) was removed from Congress in December after House investigators determined he spent tens of thousands of campaign dollars on rent, sexually explicit websites, Botox and luxury goods. Exiled.

But regulations regarding leadership PACs have been unclear since the FEC authorized the commissions in the late 1970s. Critics argue that the ban on the private use of campaign funds in the Federal Election Campaign Act applies to leadership committees, but convincing a majority of the FEC to take that position has not been completed.

In a decision last winter, the FEC 4-2 decision Nothing in the law prevents politicians from using leadership PAC funds for personal spending. The decision stemmed from a complaint that former Rep. Lou Barretta (R-Pa.)'s leadership PAC paid his wife $33,000 in rent on property she owns. It is.

Advocates for stronger enforcement of campaign finance laws have long accused the FEC of turning a blind eye when complaints of alleged violations are filed. Among them is Saurav Ghosh, the Washington-based director of federal campaign finance reform. Campaign Legal Centera nonprofit organization whose mission is to advocate for transparency in election spending.

“The FEC doesn't enforce the law in most cases,” Ghosh said.

The Times, through the agency's news bureau, 6 members The FEC, chaired by the FEC, attempted to respond to the criticism, but received no response.