Yesterday, Chaka Fattah agreed to return money that he received before he declared his candidacy, but was clearly a candidate, that was in excess of campaign donation limits:

By U.S. REP. Chaka Fattah improperly used his mayoral exploratory committee to cover $36,767 in campaign expenses, the Board of Ethics said yesterday.

Fattah has agreed to reimburse the money to the exploratory committee. Eventually the money will be returned to the individual donors.

Shane Creamer, executive director of the board, said Fattah's exploratory committee was allowed to accept contributions above the city's contribution limits before he became an official candidate. But he couldn't spend that money to influence his campaign.

As the Daily News first reported in February, Fattah used his exploratory account to pay for his Web site, his mayoral-announcement festivities and videos. The board considered those to be campaign expenses.

Fattah looks like he clearly thought he was going to get the campaign finance laws overturned, making this all moot. Well, he didn't, and they aren't. This hasn't been a secret- in fact- Fattah has generally been up front about this stuff. He was, however, wrong, and now he is returning the money. (To his credit, Creamer said his cooperation with them was 'tremendous.')

Which means... the ethics board actually works? That is pretty cool.