Rep. Tammy Townley has reached a settlement agreement with the Oklahoma Ethics Commission after a snafu in which she booked, then quickly canceled, a first-class ticket to Paris, France.
Townley (R-Ardmore) filed an candidate committee expenditure report in July 2023 attesting she spent $6,371.50 on a ticket to Paris to attend an event hosted by the National Conference of State Legislatures. Townley’s expenditure report does not specify what the event entailed, but the NCSL hosts a program in Normandy where leaders are invited to reflect on leadership displayed during D-Day. Ethics Rule 2.45 prohibits spending on first-class tickets. According to the settlement agreement, Townley realized she was in violation of the rule shortly after booking the ticket and canceled it.
“[Townley] immediately canceled the first-class flight ticket in an effort to comply with the prohibition,” the settlement agreement states. “Due to airline policies, [Townley] was unable to receive a refund of the ticket and instead received travel credit for the trip. [Townley] then rebooked the flights for coach-class tickets using a portion of the flight credit.”
The Ethics Committee is not fining Townley for booking and canceling the ticket, but rather for failing to report how she used the resulting travel credit. In a separate statement to NonDoc, Townley corroborates the agreement’s statement that she was the one who caught the initial rule violation, and acknowledged she intends to avoid any similar mistakes in the future:
In 2023, I made a purchase that I believed was an allowable expense, but found out shortly after was not. Once I was made aware, I immediately shifted course and made sure I was in compliance with all ethics rules and have been since. While I believe this was a simple mistake that was quickly corrected, I understand and appreciate the Ethics Commission’s need to ensure compliance with all rules at all times. I apologize for the oversight and for not having a complete understanding of the rules before I made the purchase. This was a mistake that will not happen again.
Townley ultimately used $3,954.81 of her travel credit on trips to Denver, Phoenix, Indianapolis and Jackson, Wyoming. Her campaign reports reveal little about the purpose of any of those trips, but the settlement agreement acknowledges they were “officeholder trips.” Townley does list a lodging expense dated to Dec. 11, 2023, at the Snow King Resort in Jackson, Wyoming. An Energy Council summit that featured Rep. Ken Luttrell (R-Ponca City) as a speaker occurred Dec. 7-9, 2023, at the same resort, and Townley wrote a Facebook post in September 2024 acknowledging she had been to an Energy Council summit in Wyoming before.
The remaining $2,416.69 of the travel credit expired without use. The settlement agreement says Townley failed to accurately record expenditures including the travel credit’s ultimate use in violation of Ethics Rules 2.73 and 2.106, both provisions relating to reporting all expenditures accurately. Townley has agreed to pay $5,000 for the violation of those two rules by July 18, with no fine for her violation of Ethics Rule 2.45. The Ethics Commission acknowledged Townley initially attempted to rectify her mistake by canceling the ticket to Paris, and Ethics Commission Executive Director Lee Anne Bruce Boone acknowledged Townley was “cooperative.”
“The Ethics Commission takes seriously the constitutional responsibility of ensuring greater trust and transparency in government and appreciates the cooperative efforts of Rep. Townley in ensuring accurate recordkeeping and expenditures of campaign funding,” Bruce Boone said in a statement.
The commission approved the settlement agreement at a meeting June 12 in which they also voted to authorize action in district court to force Rep. Ajay Pittman (D-OKC) to comply with fines related to her own campaign finance violations.
Read the Ethics Commission’s settlement agreement with Rep. Tammy Townley
(Update:Â This story was updated at 4:34 p.m. on Wednesday, June 18, 2025, to include a copy of the settlement agreement.)
