Ron BhallaRepublican congressional candidate Ron Bhalla appears to have fixed his campaign finance disclosure 10 days after the Chattanooga Times Free Press exposed several accounting errors and omissions.
Federal Election Commission regulations require candidates to itemize and describe most campaign transactions, but Bhalla’s 11-page finance report included just one expenditure — a $14,145 lump-sum disbursement to himself without any explanation.
Bhalla is challenging U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann in Tennessee’s 3rd Congressional District Republican primary.
On Wednesday, Bhalla faxed an amended report to the Times Free Press, highlighting detailed expenditures for signs, printing, advertising and other staples of the campaign trail. (In fact, Bhalla spent $5,630 at Staples itself, according to the report.)
A first-time political candidate, Bhalla said the Federal Election Commission never contacted him about the previous discrepancies — with $935 in campaign cash on hand, he’s by far the least-funded Republican in a primary packing three candidates (Fleischmann, Scottie Mayfield and Weston Wamp) with at least $1.6 million among them.