The Louisiana Board of Ethics fined Congressman Cleo Fields $2,500 Friday for not submitting a report documenting the remaining funds and debts for the campaign account from his Public Service Commission run more than 20 years ago. 

Fields, who was elected to his current term in Congress in 2024, declined to comment on the fine when reached by phone Friday. 

The Baton Rouge Democrat lost the District 3 public service commissioner race to Lambert Boissiere in a 2004 runoff election. The missing report, due in February of this year, would have documented any spending or debt forgiveness in 2024 from that campaign. 

For several years, elected officials have been required to file reports for old election accounts as long as more than $2,500 in contributions or debts remain in them. In June, Gov. Jeff Landry and state lawmakers adjusted this reporting standard, raising the threshold to $5,000.

Fields’s old account meets the standards for reporting regardless of the threshold in place. At the end of 2023, it had $3,470 in leftover contributions and $317,000 in outstanding loans made from Fields personally, according to a report he previously submitted.

Through a letter, the congressman had asked the ethics board to waive the fine. Its members declined to do so at the recommendation of the ethics board staff.

The board did not discuss why they chose not to waive or reduce Fields’ fine, but they frequently turn down such requests if the elected official or candidate has previously missed deadlines for campaign finance reporting.

Fields’ had missed a campaign finance deadline in 2019, when he filed a report for his successful Louisiana Senate election 10 days late. He also paid late fees when he missed campaign finance reporting deadlines by two months each for state senate elections in 1995, 1997 and 1999, according to the ethics board staff. Those fines totaled $2,980 and were paid in full years ago.