Alleged Irregularities in Dauphin County Democratic Committee’s Financial Reporting

Updated 9:52 AM EDT, July 4, 2026

by Laura Harding

The former chair of Dauphin County Democratic Committee, Rogette Harris, recently stated on a podcast that DCDC’s financials are available to the public and can be viewed by anyone – so I took her suggestion and looked at them. When I noticed numerous discrepancies in the reports, I submitted voucher requests for all expenditures reported from 2023-2026, under the Pennsylvania Campaign Finance Reporting Law, 25 P.S. §§ 3241–3260b. 
Dauphin County Democratic Committee (DCDC) financial reports are eyebrow-raising to say the least. Rogette Harris served as DCDC’s chair for twelve years, first elected in 2014, and in that time fundraising never exceeded five digits. Some of this can be attributed to DCDC failing to form a finance committee over multiple years, a treasurer vacancy that spanned almost three cumulative years, and reports of a widespread lack of confidence in the committee among elected officials and their surrogates which led to them withholding contributions from the committee.
The treasurer position became vacant in October 2021 following the death of Howard Parker. The position remained vacant until the reorganization, held on June 4, 2022, when Rachel Young was elected to the position. Within three months she had resigned from the position, followed a month later by Melinda Curran, who resigned her position as secretary. Both positions remained vacant for two full years, until the election of secretary Hudaya House and treasurer Claude Phipps, at the August 2024 Executive Board Meeting. It is also evident that the committee never notified the Pennsylvania Department of State of the vacancy, as the contact information on the campaign finance database was not updated following Young’s departure until 2024, listing Claude Phipps as the treasurer but Harris’s email address is on file in place of his. The database also still shows Young as the “active” request person for the M & T bank account – nearly four years after her resignation and two years after Phipps took over the role of treasurer.
The DCDC bylaws state that such vacancies shall be filled within thirty days of the vacancy, so a two-year gap is extreme not just by theirs but by any standard. The bylaws also state that it is the duty of the chair to “have financial records independently reviewed according to generally accepted accounting principles prior to October 1st following the County Reorganization Meeting or in any year where a new Treasurer is elected,” and this did not occur. Additionally, Pennsylvania Campaign Finance Law prohibits the committee from receiving contributions or making expenditures when there is a vacancy in the office of treasurer. (See § 1622) – a statute that DCDC failed to follow as they continued to accept contributions and make expenditures in years 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024 when the position of treasurer was vacant.
After a ten-day extension to provide the vouchers, treasurer Claude Phipps submitted a mere 40 vouchers, with a cover letter addressed to Dauphin County Bureau of Elections Director Chris Spackman, claiming he is unable to provide vouchers that predate his tenure as treasurer – a claim disputed by his own submission as almost all receipts were addressed to and forwarded from Rogette Harris’s email account, including some that predate his tenure. His claim of assuming the duties of treasurer in May 2024 “as a replacement for the deceased Howard Parker” (who it has been established died in 2021), and which is disputed by an email dated Aug. 29, 2024, announcing Phipps’s election to the position that month. This is the only record of the vacancies being filled since 2022, as it has been verified by multiple committee members that there are no meeting minutes, and the only record of the positions being filled after the resignations of Young and Curran is this single email.
The committee’s campaign finance reports following Parker’s death in 2021, and before Young’s election in 2022, were filed by Alex Reber, who stated that he stepped in to help the committee as there was no one else willing to do it and he wanted them to be in compliance. He also stated that during this time, he did not have a debit card nor login credentials for the bank account and only had an ActBlue login to view those transactions. He stated his only role was to file the campaign finance reports, and he did not make any expenditures. He recalled that at one point the executive committee was given bank statements at their monthly meetings but couldn’t remember when they stopped being provided.
The 2023 campaign finance reports, filed by Harris’s live-in partner Michael Weitekamp, are an entirely different story and sound all of the alarms. For starters, before Young’s departure in 2022, the tenant ledger provided in the voucher request does not show any late payments for the office. Who was making those payments in the early part of 2022 is unclear, as Rachel Young stated that she was never given a debit card, access to the accounts, nor any of the tools needed to succeed as treasurer which was a primary reason for her resigning. It’s also worth mentioning that Young stated she “thought the $1,200 per month office rent was high, and without fundraising, didn’t understand how the money was being utilized.” However, the tenant ledger lists the rent in 2022 as being $984 – a difference of $216. If Young was told the rent was $1,200, she had no way of verifying the information she was told was accurate, without access to the accounts. It could not be determined if Weitekamp had a debit card or login credentials for the bank account. An effort was made to reach him but was unsuccessful.
Beginning in February 2023 the office rent payments were consistently late, with late fees ranging from $49-$419. The latest postelection campaign finance report filed by Phipps shows a previously unreported debt of $8,000 for unpaid office rent. What has been confirmed in the limited batch of vouchers that Phipps provided, and from previous treasurers, is that the expenditures were made by Rogette Harris, and she did so because she was the sole debit card and account credential holder. It does not appear from the vouchers if Phipps has a debit card for the DCDC account. Multiple attempts to reach him to verify this were unsuccessful. Vouchers that stand out as having been excluded from the request are for SAM’s Club and Verizon, because both provide business accounts, and the Verizon statements would provide the service address. This also stands out because Phipps noted on the Oct. 4, 2025 Financial Report that “we still have not received monthly invoices from Verizon,” which could easily be obtained via their account login on the website, or by calling their customer service. 
The only payment made by Phipps himself was from what appears to be his personal credit card in the amount of $6,784.16 to Best Western Premier in September 2025, and for which it can only be presumed is why his name was listed as an expenditure, because no documents were provided to show how much he was reimbursed for that expenditure. Multiple calls were placed to Phipps to verify this but those calls have not been returned. This expenditure raises several ethics questions regarding the apparent conflict of interest for a treasurer to also be engaging with the committee as both a donor and money lender.
Also notably missing are vouchers for payments to several individuals, including Democratic State Committeewoman Phyllis Bennett, and a hotel stay in Pittsburgh – a handwritten credit card authorization form for the hotel stay was provided but not the invoice. 
Another monthly committee financial report oddity from Phipps are reports of multiple counter cash withdrawals – one for $679.80 with a memo as being for a chairperson event and another for $833.37 with no memo. The chairperson events were held at established business locations where debit cards are accepted so such a large cash withdrawal would be unnecessary.
Then there is the reversal in January 2025 for a deposit made in November 2024 from “Carlisle Hope,” Rogette Harris’s employer, in the amount of $1,907.39. The circumstances surrounding the deposit and reversal are unclear, as Alex Reber said that he is unaware of it, and Phipps has been unreachable. Harris’s LinkedIn says her employment at Hope Station in Carlisle, Pennsylvania began in September 2024.
DCDC closed out the 2025 cycle in the negative, reporting an ending cash balance of -226.17 on their cycle seven annual report. An audit of reports dating back to year-end 2021 revealed gaps of non-reporting. The first was postelection 2022, and then four consecutive no reports in 2024 – Pre-Primary, Post-Primary, preelection, and Postelection. The audit of the single annual report filed by Phipps in 2024 revealed underreported contributions on the front summary sheet by $10,595 that disappears by the time they declare their ending cash balance on the report, to set up the amount to carry over to their next reporting time frame, being Pre-Primary 2025. Even more strange, an amended report was filed with all of the contributions listed on the previous report zeroed out – but the expenses remained unchanged, including to Verizon for which monthly statements allegedly weren’t received, and the same payment to Verizon doesn’t appear on the monthly financial report provided to the executive committee. Per the auditor, “the Accounting reveals gaps of proper reporting allowing an opportunity to skim moneys out of the account versus what the detail shows. Years 2023 and 2024 report audits show in both instances misreporting versus what the detail they have provided is showing.”