Former Kentucky secretary of state wins ethics case
Alison Lundergan Grimes during Politicon at the Pasadena Convention Center in Pasadena, California, on July 29, 2017. Politicon is a bipartisan convention that mixes politics, comedy and entertainment. (Photo by Ronen Tivony/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
After years of legal wrangling, former Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes is free of any state ethics violation charges.
The Executive Branch Ethics Commission, which brought charges against her in 2021, has decided not to try to appeal to the Kentucky Supreme Court last month's unanimous decision by the Kentucky Court of Appeals to uphold a lower court order that cleared Grimes of any wrongdoing.
With no appeal to the state's highest court from the commission within 30 days, the appellate court finalized its decision on April 21.
'There are no legal charges any more against her, and there never should have been any,' her attorney, Jon Salomon of Louisville, said Monday night.
The end of the legal case could opens the door for a possible run for another political office. The Democrat is seen by some Kentucky political observers as a possible candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2026 or Central Kentucky's 6th Congressional District next year.
Grimes is a Lexington lawyer who was secretary of state from 2011 to 2019 and was an unsuccessful candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2014 against Republican Mitch McConnell. She is the daughter of the former state Democratic Party Chair Jerry Lundergan of Lexington. The Lundergan family is close to former President Bill Clinton and his wife, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Grimes did not return phone calls seeking comments about her legal victory and political future.
Susan Clary, executive director of the ethics commission, had no comment Monday night when asked why the commission did not ask the Kentucky Supreme Court to review the Court of Appeals' decision.
The commission had been investigating Grimes for several years.
In November 2021, the commission fined Grimes $10,000 for two ethical violations pertaining to handling of voter data.
As secretary of state, Grimes was the state's chief elections officer. In her position, she had access to data from the state voter registration system in the State Board of Elections.
The commission had alleged that Grimes violated the ethics code by sharing voter information without requiring a request under the Open Records Act or other 'established process of government.'
Grimes responded that all the voter data at issue was information in the public domain and that she had full legal authority and discretion as secretary of state to access and share such information. She claimed no statute or regulation was violated by the sharing of such public information. She claimed the commission's charges were barred by the five-year statute of limitations and that the record did not support a finding of any violations of the state executive branch's code of ethics.
The commission argued that it was not bound by any statute of limitations and claimed that a limitation could hamper its work on other cases.
The only allegations pursued by the Ethics Commission were that Grimes allegedly acted unethically in accessing public information in the voter registration system by downloading voter information onto a thumb drive when she was a candidate for reelection.
The commission also looked at whether Grimes improperly shared information on new voter registrations for certain Kentucky House of Representative districts in response to a request made informally through the office of the House speaker without requiring a formal open records request or charging a fee.
Grimes fought the charges in Franklin Circuit Court and Judge Phillip Shepherd ruled in her favor.
Then the three-member appellate court said last month that the Executive Branch Ethics Commission missed its statutory deadline to charge Grimes with improperly ordering the downloading and distribution of voter registration data from her public office while she was Kentucky's secretary of state.
'The Franklin Circuit Court reversed the commission's decision, finding it was arbitrary, not supported by substantial evidence and time barred. Due to the statute of limitations alone, we affirm,' said the appellate court decision. The three appellate judges were Susanne M. Cetrulo, James H. Lambert and Jeff S. Taylor.
Salomon, Grimes' attorney, noted that the final order contained a 'To Be Published' provision, meaning that the case sets precedent in law.
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