please the court the election code allows any person to file a complaint alleging a violation of article nine of the code which regulates campaign contributions and expenditures when a citizen files a complaint the state board of elections is required or close to women or hearing to determine whether the complaint is filed on a justifiable basis if the complaint is found to be  justifiable basis then the board is required to hold a public hearing on the merits of the complaint before issuing a final decision on that the merits of his claims in this case the board of elections found that the david cook's complaint which raises allegations that the committee for frank j might you know was which many for that raises allegations that committee for violated section nine dash seven nine national leben and nine dash eight point hand of the code was filed on justifiable grounds yet the board issued a final order without ever issued without ever addressing the merits of the complaint he said so this seems to be a major sticking point and major disagreement between the parties in terms of whether or not the court found that the entire complaint was justifiable only portions of the never that the board felt that the section nine dash eight point and claims were not filed on a justifiable basis but they point to nothing in the argument that explicitly says rather they point to one thing in the board's word or that says that the in regard to the allegation that the expenditures made to happys and the bank lacks sufficient detail become plaintiff was filed on justifiable ground but this statement but that argument ignores the fact that that doesn't specifically say that the section nine dash eight point pen claims were not filed on a justifiable basis and it ignores other statements in the record and in the order the board's worst states elsewhere that the recommendations of the hearings salmon are and the general counsel or adopted and then the recommendations of the hearing sam or after of knowledge ing that the complaint contains allegations of section nine dash seven nine actual eleven and nine dash eight point hen this hearing examiners recommendation says that the complaint is filed upon a justifiable bas addition the general counsel's memo concurs with the recommendation of the hearing examiner and doesn't say anything about only a portion of the complaint being filed on a justifiable basis and also the transcript of the board's may sixteenth two thousand and six team meeting and executive session shows that no board member ever discussed let alone intended to find that only a portion of the complaint should be filed on justifiable grounds and the findings in the final word or indicate that the findings in the board's final word are on may eighteenth two thousand and seventeen talk that the board adopted the hearing damage his recommendation is quote finding justifiable grounds for filing the complaint so it seems very strange that the board after a year of supposedly  finding that only a portion of the complaint was filed on justifiable grounds never said and in in the record no member of the board no hearing examiner  no employee or agent of the board from the time that the board issued its may two thousand and sixteen order until the time that the board issued its final order and may twenty seventeen ever stated that only a portion of the complaint was filed on a justifiable basis mr suave being is candid as you would care to be can you explain to me what happened by that i mean did the board purposefully but i mean what is it that you think should now happen and why what should happen your honor is that this this court should remain and the nine dash eight point and claims bac board and require it to make a ruling on the merits either one way or the other and it really should be based upon you have it is that has already been presented and the recommendations that have been made yes your honor we feel like we've already presented the evidence at the very least if if the board found there if this court found that the board should hold a public hearing on the merits that discovery and all that evidence has already been presented it could be presented to again or we could rely on the public hearing that was already how before the hearing salmon or because although the hearing salmon are limited the scope of that hearing only to decide whether the committee complied with the board may two thousand and sixteen order to amend he let them put in all the other at last put in all the evidence so that if you have a sound put in whenever they want i believe the other side responded to the evidence and the arguments  you can ask you can ask the counsel for for mr and for the committee whether they feel like they were adequately responded but even if they didn't this court could allow the board to hold another public would have no objection we would have no objection to that as long as the our main objection in this case is that we weren't even allowed to have the the court didn't even allow us to have a decision on the on the merits of the can complain  of the can of the claims that we made in this contained four counts and what we've been talking about are the not section nine dash eight point ten claims and and there are really two kinds of claims under nine dash eight point ten one is under nine dash eight point then  nine if it prohibits a committee from paying for personal vehicles and that is exactly what the evidence shows that the committee was doing here they were paying for vehicles they did not own or lease for gas  court heard that the board did not address the claim at all the other one is the claim that the expenditures to happys and the bank were in excess of fair market value and again that was not addressed by the  but the argument what their response argument seems to grass is the issue of the nine point seven and the nine point zero eleven claims and those require that those are fire or various requirements about reporting and recording expenditures and so the argument that i understand that the respondents are making in that case is that there's a finding in the final word i think it's finding twelve that says state's nine point eight point then when it in probably should have or seems like it meant nine point seven and nine point zero eleven so to the extent that the respondents are conceding that the board addressed those claims but just issued there were just cited the wrong the wrong section number then our argument is that this court can correct that and issue a finding  or issue it were either correcting of the the board's finding and stating that the nine point seven and nine point nine dash eleven claims there was sufficient evidence to show violation or it can rema claims specifically have their own find it's not limited to five thousand dollars so the board could issue a fine but my client is most interested in this case of just having a finding on the record because we're talking about here is campaign you know campaign requirements of elected officials and the the legislature felt that it was important that us citizens have the ability to file complaints when they believe that the violations of the election code took place and here we have well seems to be a major violation of the election code over a long period of time and it  seems important enough to the legislature that we have a decision on that today so that people are informed about whether you know there are a lack of officials are complying with the laws that they they themselves have read so my client's main interest is that he gets a fair shake at having his claims heard before the board of elections and the and the legislatures and and passing this law of allowing allowing citizens to file complaints before the board of elections is so statement of the words were and the hearing officers recommendation was that the entire complaint was filed on justifiable grounds and that's what the language indicates and the subsequent record indicate that there was no there's no evidence that d if they are address and it's found there were violations then the public would be served because of the transparency and in addition to that transparency assuming that you were prevail boyo there will be fines there could be fines imposed that are greater than five thousand dollars correct and other elected officials will know what is and this case began with a report i believe in a newspaper about these the spending and i believe the reporter approached somebody from the board of elections and was told that the board a l elections could not do anything unless a citizen filed a complaint so unless a citizen filed a complaint then that then you know these was could not be enforced so  if if if this case continues so that when a citizen like my client david cook files a complaint and then doesn't get an actual hearing on the merits of his claims that will dissuade future people from filing complaints when there are by a lesions of the election code and because the board has said that they can't do anything about it the wall will be secured skirted by presumably by elected officials for least in theory it could so it's important that if we're going to have a system where citizens are allowed to keep their alleged good officials accountable to comply with the campaign finance laws then they are actually given a hearing on the merits of those cla accountability here not taking the position that there was some confusion as to what the law is and what the expectations and requirements are known and in fact i think in this case with respect to what was done i think places in the record that don't really agree with you just say i have the the only finding in the board's problem and every order that speaks to what was filed on justifiable ground is that fine if the qualifying and it to be fair it doesn't cite any code specific code violations and so i think that's where the confusion comes from in this case is everyone seemed to what was going on absolutely the board knew well here the board knew what was present what evidence was presented to it at the preliminary hearing stage bickering officer has a rather detailed explanation and recommendation of that and see during you can you point me to language in the hearing officers recommendation that would clearly indicate to a later fact officer is recommendation paragraph fourteen and fifteen of that page say the expenditures to spring valley city bank lack sufficient detail do not disclose the purpose and over seats of numerous disbursements the board makes no findings on whether or not the repor language means orders but they can't it the only what the board's order means is that this is the basis this is these are the only allegations that have  one nine seven and nine eleven those speak to a lack of sufficient detail those go to the reporting requirements for these reports nine eight dot ten eight two and a nine a two goes towards the fair expenditures clearly in excess of the fair market value and a nine goes towards permissible and impermissible uses of vehicle campaign vehicle reimbursing mileage and stuff like that and at the preliminary hearing stage what cook really have all he had were with the reports and the reports were deficient on their face actually cooked one at the preliminary hearing stage it was no additional evidence needed and without the committee amending those reports to parse out who made it and expenditure to whom and by how much there wasn't anything else the board  which needed to report to be able to flesh out what would be the problems with eight as opposed to seven and that's true that's true but the committee at the board had the authority maximum fine is five thousand dollars and that's by that's the design of the code and the regulation that's all the the committee could do at that point to the committee counsel do you agree that if we were to find that the entire complaint was found to be filed on justifiable grounds then this would have to go back because everything was not resolved well there i have a few layers to that question  there is any kind of remain and it needs to go back to the policeman area hearing stage but before cook could do that he's really that ship has sailed on that moment because they have not they never asked to amend the complaint even after they had some discovery and they haven't been they never saw a direct administrative review of that may twenty sixth implement a hearing or they just proceeded through the proceedings assuming they are continuing to  litigate claims there were outside the skull and they were told that all the stages that these are outside of the issue that's before us they were getting paid the hearing officer let them present their evidence but that doesn't mean the hearing officer still  kept to the issue at hand and they were told at every moment in the proceedings that this is outside of scope this is outside the scope and then in their opening refund direct administrative review they make no argument challenging the skull may twenty sixt order and that's where this the two positions should be you agree that the hearing officer did recommend to the board that this complaint that they find that the complaint is filed on justifiable grounds this means that a recommendation of the hearing officer yes and wasn't drafted by the board it was adopted well it was a dock by the board with qualification i don't think that these where in the golf occasion the qualification in the board order is in it's finding that in regard to the expenditures at happy's in the bank they lack sufficient detail and then in the hearing officers recommendation is the same thing it has to be reading contests there are findings that precede the conclusion that the complaint was filed on justifiable grounds otherwise it would be a situation where you could throw the kitchen sink of code violations  and i don't i don't think they i think they have one piece of new evidence that was already presented at the public hearing which was about the committee not owning or leasing a vehicle i think they've missed that that point here in direct administrative review that's for but that they're really trying to backdoor change the may twenty sixth in order clear that the only issue they found to be filing justifiable grounds was the lack of sufficient detail cording those were the only factual findings made in either of those decisions and the remedy ordered by those decisions directed only at amended report there was no discussion of fair market value there was no discussion of campaign vehicles there is simply no fine affirmative findings of any violation of one point ten and under the code that is fatal to mr close claim because the covert choir's an affirmative finding of justifiable grounds the code states that if the board fails to make any findings as to just file grounds the complain is dismissed so in this case it's very critical that the board made d it runs counter to the entire purpose of the pulmonary hearing which is to narrow the claims that the board has to consider at any subsequent public hear whether everyone knew what they were doing and i'd like to know that during a september twenty sixth board meeting vice chairman gallant stated quote there's a deadline for this committee to file amended reports period that is the heart and soul of this order so i only bring that to your attention he's speaking to mr cook so you understand it's a very very limited obligation of this committee extremely limited the board knew that the issue at hand was compliance with its may twenty sixth order and nothing else and that aligns with the board's regulations under the regulations a closed hearing is held if complain if a complaint is filed in justifiable grounds or claims of filing justifiable grounds because the board then gives the committee a chance to comply if the committee does not seedings and there would be no additional time to post here because hey mr cook has forfeited many times over the boards ability to impose a higher than five thousand dollars fine be the board itself believed that five thousand dollars was the maximum which in interpreting its own regulations is zero deference and the regulations themselves say that for any violation of article nine the board is required to give a committee a chance to comply and if the committee does not comply with that order they then impose a fine up to five thousand dollars mr cox claims are alleged violations of article nine there are alleged part of violations of article one ten so if proceedings went would be unable to comply and there would be nothing nothing left to do it would be no fine imposed and even the members who wanted to consider the nitish a point ten claims at the public hearing indicated that any fine would run concurrently matters purses i did this on behalf of campaign here is my mileage reimburse me for my mileage correct but mr cook was required to prove that that was a knowing violation there is a mental  that you didn't do it well it proves that there's no knowing violation of the code and that if she was unaware that the reporting was off and again we're talking about reporting which was before the board the board found in mr cox favor on that point this is not the occasion to consider the substantive actual expenditures themselves so there's a difference between reporting expenditures and making mr cook is advancing an argument regarding the making of the exit i but that's not for this court and he those issues when there had been no warning at all that they were going to up a rise until the public hearing doe's man says that one his claims at the preliminary hearing and that no additional evidence was needed after the after the preliminary hearing because the nine seven and nine eleven claims were approve after the committee failed to comply with the board's may order to amend those complaints which to amend those those disclosure reports the the committee or i'm sorry the board gave the committee until july twenty fifth two thousand and sixteen to do so and it's under spewed that the board did or that the committee did not actually amend its disclosure reports so according to mr doe's been the case should have been over at that point yet somehow the board in the hearing examiner allowed my client to kentucky the scullery extensive discovery not on those issues but on the nine eight ten issues and then mr goldman says that we were told throughout the whole proceeding that we that that issue was not before us well if it wasn't before us if the case was over then why were real out the conduct of this government and given the fact that the recommendation of the hearing salmon are states that the that could complaint alleges violations of nine dash eight ten why would mr cook think that he needed to amend  his complaint it clearly states in the recommendation that the complaint contains those allegations and there's nothing that shows that that those complaints were dismissed in fact there's no worker there's nothing in the  record that says that the ninety eight ten claims were dismissed despite the fact that the code requires when the board find the claim is not found on a justifiable basis the code requires the board to issue a dismissal order and finding explicitly says that as we pointed out in our brief and in you had the motion to dismiss that was filed by the committee correct right and that was denied in its entirety correct no language saying ok we grant this at certain claims and we're moving forward on yes correct it and the statement that at the point where the nine and ten claims were allegedly not found to be justifiable on justifiable grounds the point that we should somehow appealed that decision is very strange because interlocking tory appeals are not allowed if you have a workout complaint in two counts of the third dismissed in two counts continue then you can appeal to the  in normal circumstances four for a decision on that issue so i'm not exactly sure what what counsel thinks that we should have done at that point given that he admits that the nine seven and nine eleven claims  so so there really was no chance even assuming that they're correct which they're not for us to to do so and then just whiffed but with respect to the evidence on the nine eight ten she says that the committee did not own or lease any vehicles and that these were personal vehicles and that the the that and that they with the committee was paying for for these these