just say this i have grown up in the chicago legal community i had the opportunity to meet your acquaintance of a retired judge and in those situations where i would go to this  they would be tough cases and he would say to me court read the statute and think great but this is not one of the cases that i would have gone to that judge the talk because the way which citizens for life are filed that report was improper it was improper because it didn't comply with section nine dash twenty eight which is the statute that says committees are over a certain threshold ten thousand dollars must file these reports electronic however section nine dash twenty eight does not say anything about state senator trying her very fast to comply with a law hiring individuals that turned out to be not to be competent and they were dishonest instilling money from the committees fuck so what does she do he hires another person to assist her in all the team the committee attempting to rectify the books and make everything in compliance with the staff so which is five thousand dollars under the statute and so that's right the committee is here today because that in the committee's opinion was a not a  through the papers there there is no statutory authority to impose such a fine or not in this report electronic and my paper is going to look the poor staff makes audits of these committees and no matter the audit twenty thousand reports or twelve thousand reports generally speaking you wind up with fourteen hundred reports that have to be given and in my experience most of these committees are trying their very best to comply with the law and those amendments are there's a great degree of probability that those amendments stem from the fact that about justice the committee never actually received that notice that but that's another part of this the subpoena i look at this is  applied comply with the statute we believe that it did but then when you start looking at the facts of the case did the committee received a notice that said you follow this improperly and then you have thirty days within which to follow your report electronic and there's nothing in the record that suggests that this committee ever received th submitted a lot of indicating that she had learned of this in in the beginning of two thousand of the lot so this was supposedly took place in attach to the respondents three or to generate four generated letters that appear now that i trust and in does state that what you just said ye i mean i kind of a number of letters i was there more than one there was there were there were four letters but two in seconds you know you see any of them no notion that none of them not kno the letters you know it's all sort of good every great interest and it's not part of the record and it won't be part of our decision either but i'd always matter of fact when you go over there and you file it not like tragically they tell you that and they tell you hey if you wait a few minutes we'll show you how to do it like really we could do it right here i do know that no i have never experienced the v m work stuff that's not that's not really paper it was scanned in then made available on the internet the same day in which it was filed on paper so where would the harm it's not searchable well we disagree with that any time you key in the word like word or any other name i committing that report will come up it may not be search again i would just go back to no harm no foul and in terms of a one that's section nine dash ten the five that is where if you receive contributions within the thirty day period of an election you must file those eighty one forms listing those contributions within two business things here contributions received on november first the day before the november second election and the consultant that sen light for it hired at honestly mistakenly thought because the two days within which to file one of them fell after november second therefore it was not necessary to file day one and the hearing officer even in her over the four records sat this was an unintentional the stay in the last time that committee had adding a one violation was two thousand and three some eight years prior so again the committee believe when we take this job you know we have to raise your right hand we take an old city that oath is that we're going to follow the laws of the state of illinois right right ok ok so you tell me after taking their oath how do i change with they did when they followed the law but they did not follow the law with regard to the five thousand  it doesn't say of this subsection and not a dash twenty eight our position is the core as your honor said must follow the law the statute says what i committees and i have represented in provider committees but i have never at this particular issue and or the board to be as dry as it was in this case and it just sat wrong with the committed and how good the senator was was treated based on the facts and the facts of nine twenty eight wrong i respectfully say that the reduction to ten percent to three thousand twenty five dollars is reasonable but the statute says it can take into consideration these other factors which is the last time it occurred or in a one publication not the other violations but when he won by was two thousand and three and the hearing officer witnessed  consultant the consultant sat there and said i made a honest mistake and it's a reasonable interpretation or a person to say we should receive these funds within the thirty day period prior to a  require that committees file their semiannual expenditure contribution reports the january twentieth or they would be fine and when read in light of can of section twenty eight that those committees with sufficient assets must  there is very well this is not a complicated argument and in fact the public at the state gift ban act which amended section twenty eight in order to mandate electronic filing website and make that search and i will find out each of each and every individual contribution to comcast each candidate except for those which were bay by paper files those were not those would not show up on the search that they would today because they'd be filed electronically about a year later but it went before and the same thing goes for expenditures another concern that they have big reason their contribution expendable forces they want to know and the people watching know where is the money going  violations of up for late filing for some io reports and specific instructions to issue regulations provide for electronic filing they certainly by fair implication also have already issued the regulation issue here that require officer for the committee and never made that specific kind of claim or just basically based statements that when she tried trial and she was trying to file and trying to comply with the rules we don't deny that that she received advice that she could fax the information in and the find that the board abused its discretion by issuing the minimal penalty or any penalty at all these has already been argued here that there was an abuse of discretion even so it was reasonable for them to give the unintentional violation that would be an abuse of discretion and that's clearly clearly not what the law says and also just to correct for looking back at the prior violations of the committee when you rebecca prior violations in order to violation you look at first of all how many prior violations served then disclosure by lucian's and then based on how many there are you then give a daily there's a basically number like whether it's fifty dollars one hundred dollars two hundred dollars  therefore you have to look at the regulations you need to look at other sections of the code and you have to look at the legislative history i believe that's what counsel said there's no legislative history cited in counsel's brief none whatsoever i did cite the legislative history surrounding section nine dash twenty used the example of comcast with comcast makes contributions to other the kennedy school of public official can function comcast and that have come up yes it does do that it happened instantaneously but you can still look at citizens for like it might take you a little longer to keep that in specifically i called mr sure and asked her man have all the papers surrounding this case but mr schorr told me was it's essentially you have it you have the report there are no other counsel filed a motion to supplement the record i excuse me a motion for an extension of time to make sure the record was complete the two letters attached to history were not in the record by and i write all the folks at the board of elections i'm not casting any negative aspersions on him but if we're going to proceed down this road in in a somewhat trial like lovel the board would have to produce what it says that it has or has sent and lastly i would just say that you are aware that if a find has been imposed upon a candidate in the fine is not paid that kennedy is barred from appearing on the ballot so anything that important to a public official or a candidate any anything that would bar those persons from being on the ballot we respectfully submit that that notice should be sent by certified or registered mail what's why can't that were never part of the hearing before the board again those letters appear for the first time in the in response brief so how could a binding be made at the board level that those letters were sent i called out hearing officer asking for the date that's what i said that's in the transcript before the court i said that i had called and that there was not so desires to proceed in such a way like they are doing that they should seek legislative authority