With five days before the November 2nd election, Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance (MassFiscal) alerted the Office of Campaign and Political Finance (OCPF) of more potentially illegal campaign spending by Massachusetts based environmental groups.

A copy of the letter may be found here.

MA Clean Water Action Vote Environment PAC is located at 88 Broad Street in Boston. As a political action committee, they may make contributions to candidates of up to $500 per year. Since January, the only expenses reported to OCPF by this PAC are monthly bank fees. Starting on August 25, this PAC began running Facebook advertisements in support of 11 candidates for the Massachusetts legislature. The Facebook advertisements include a disclaimer that states the ads are paid for by the PAC, however these expenditures are not reported on OCPF’s website and were being delivered by a Facebook account of a legally separate organization, Clean Water Action Massachusetts. Additionally, the ads were registered with Facebook as being served by a third separate organization, Clean Water Action based in Washington, D.C.

“With only a few days before election day, it’s become increasingly mystifying why some PACs and organization decide to skirt campaign finance rules in order to elect or defeat their candidates in an improper way,” said Paul Diego Craney, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance.

The list of ads being promoted on Facebook without being disclosed to OCPF are benefiting the following candidates: Democratic State Senators Becca Rausch, and Susan Moran, Democratic State Representatives Natalie Higgins, Patrick Kearney, Joan Meschino, Dan Sena, Carmine Gentile, Tram Nguyen, Damali Vidot, and Michelle DuBois, and Democratic candidate for Representative Adam Scanlon.

“Massachusetts has very zealous campaign finance rules. Either MA Clean Water Action Vote Environment PAC doesn’t believe they need to adhere to them because they won’t get caught, or they don’t respect voters enough to make sure they follow the law. We hope they will withdraw their Facebook ads before Tuesday to show they do have some integrity left,” concluded Craney.