There were several corrections to the originally filed report. On it some items were reported as non campaign disbursements that actually were campaign related. There were a handful of errors on a year long report. All were corrected, but the DFL chose to play games, and file a compaint over a report that had no impact.

Also, the suspended license was incorrect, which is why it was dropped in court.

Finally, since you use such a wide brush when painting political parties, I guess you assume all Democrats are cigar riding tramps, like Bill and Monica? Good to know where you stand I guess.

Hmmmmm usually Brunettes are a bit more sensible than the above comment indicates.

Hyper partisan nonsense? I don't think so. No politian has the right to use campaign funds for personal use and it is up to the citizens of this country to pay attention to how campaign funds are being spent. I would have to pay a speeding ticket out of my own pocket. Why in the world would I agree to a politician using funds that I may have contributed to for their own mistakes? Show's a decided lack of responsibility and accountability in my book.Let's try not to redirect a blatant misuse of monies entrusted to our politicians, be they whatever party and keep the accountability in the lap of the misuser.

He did pay for it out of his own pocket. This was resolved before the complaint was even issued. The modified paperwork hadn't arrived yet. But that doesn't matter to the DFL.

Let's be very clear about what happened here, because Mr. Brunette is shading the series of events.

Rep. Leidiger paid the speeding ticket out of campaign funds and claimed it as valid expenditure on his 2011 campaign finance report (despite the fact it is not a valid campaign expenditure). Leidiger's treasurer, Steve Nielsen (who is also the chair of the SD 34 GOP) claimed that such expenses were considered "just another cost of serving".

Once this was publicized, Rep. Leidiger has modified his campaign finance report and has reportedly repaid the campaign for the funds (although we won't know that for sure until the 2012 campaign finance reports are filed -- next one is before the primary election)

I'm not shading anything. There were several mistakes on the campaign finance report. After having filed the original report, the remaining items were discussed with several members, including myself, Ernie, Steve, and folks at the finance board. All of the corrections were in motion before the DFL made it's complaint.

It's part of the process. If you look at the front page of the report, you have the opportunity to file amendments. As soon as I mentioned that the problems were being addressed, some one ran off to the DFL to try to get a complaint in before the corrections were finalized and submitted. Rather than allow a normal iterative process to occur, the DFL and folks who dislike Ernie made it their top priority to get an ethics charge generated, where none was necessary.

It you were to go to brick city's blog page, you see a point where I said the corrections were being made, and then another blogger stating that he was going to try to rush a complaint together. Istated it was too late, that the corrections were in motion, but that only feuled the fire to rush to file complaint.

It's too bad so many have to be so petty, and not allow a volunteer like Steve, to get the chance to make the corrections without some need for partisan war games. I imagine we'll likely see blog entries that show actual timelines of events removed, and or modified, since the end game was always to railroad someone.

The "normal" campaign finance process is not supposed to be an "iterative" one. You're supposed to get it right the first time.

Sen. Ortman has never had to file an amended form in ten years of service, for instance.