Rep. Steven Jackson of Shreveport fought the ethics board before writing new ethics laws

Two weeks later, Jackson made the same complaint in an email to the ethics board about having to file that campaign finance report.

“You may not know or may not care, but citizens in the region experienced a 100-year snowstorm that caused severe disruption to every level of service as noted in the submitted form,” Jackson wrote .

“Our office is aware of the storm and the devastating effect it had on people, and to say our office doesn’t care is not fair,” Allen responded to Jackson’s email on behalf of the ethics department. “Since then I have spoken to and assisted many people with filing reports. However, we are contacting people who have not yet submitted the necessary reports.”

Despite his numerous email exchanges, the state has had to go to great lengths to extract some of the fines Jackson owes over the past five years.

In 2019, the ethics board filed a short-lived lawsuit to prevent Jackson from qualifying for a second term on the Caddo Parish Commission over $3,600 the board said he owed in late fees from his race since 2015. State law requires candidates for public office to have paid their penalties in full before entering a new election cycle.

The lawsuit, filed on August 15, 2019, was withdrawn the next day after Jackson hurriedly met with the board and paid some of the fines he owed. The board acknowledged that Jackson may not have received notices that more recent campaign finance reports were late.

Jackson won the 2019 Caddo Commission election in October as an unopposed candidate.

That victory didn’t stop Jackson from lashing out at ethics board staff a year later, however, when staffers told him he still owed additional fines for missed deadlines in 2018.

“What is this about and why am I getting this? I paid you all these taxes and owe nothing. There must be something wrong with your system,” Jackson wrote to Allen of the ethics board staff on July 14, 2020.

Two years later, another tense email exchange involving Allen, Jackson and the attorney general’s staff indicated that he still hadn’t paid $3,260 in fines for his overdue 2018 campaign reports.

“You will all continue to harass police jurors, school board members, and local public officials who will one day eventually become state legislators. Probably sooner than later,” Jackson wrote in an email in 2022, a year before he won his state election.

A few months later, the attorney general’s office garnished more than $1,000 a month in Jackson’s wages in May, June and July to recoup some of the late fees he owed from the 2018 election cycle. The attorney general’s staff collects ethics fees that have remained unpaid for several weeks.

By that time, Jackson’s costs had grown to include not only the original penalties, but also interest on the original fines, attorneys’ fees, court costs and a fee to the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office to enforce the wage garnishment, according to an e- 2023 email from Amy Richard Easley, who worked on Jackson’s collections for the attorney general’s office.

“You can’t be serious. If the AG’s office didn’t send the money they collected, is it my fault? What kind of game are you all playing. These fines have been paid. You have what you need. Why are you jerking off to me?” Jackson wrote to ethics staff and Easley on August 4, 2023 after being told he had to pay his fines to qualify for his legislative race.

Jackson finally paid the remaining penalties about a week after he sent that email on Aug. 9, 2023. The next day, he registered to run for the Louisiana House of Representatives, Allen said.

Even after handing over thousands of dollars in fines, Jackson continued to miss campaign reporting deadlines, improperly file reports and rack up new penalties. Since that email exchange a year ago with Easley, he has racked up $3,220 in new penalties.