Campaign Finance Transparency in Virginia
By Kiel Stone and Jeremy Beales • Aug 11th, 2009 • Category: Top Story, TransparencyPolitical analysts and operatives have long called Virginia the wild west of campaign finance. Unlike the vast majority of other states, as well as the federal government, Virginia has no limits on political donations. Individuals and corporations can give as much as they want to candidates and there are next to no limits on what kinds of goods and services companies can give.
Virginia’s system is predicated on disclosure. Without limits on donations the only way to prevent corruption and hold politicians accountable is to allow citizens to easily know who is giving what. Given the fact that Virginia has among the weakest campaign finance limits, to make the system work we need to compensate by having among the strongest disclosure laws in the county.
Earlier this summer, the Center for Public Integrity released its latest rankings on the financial disclosure practices of state legislatures. To grade out their survey the Center asks the real tough questions like: do you require financial disclosure filing, is employment information required and is client information required. Sarcasm aside, like 19 other states Virginia failed.
Scoring a very unimpressive 59.5, 35 points below standard bearing Louisiana, Virginia can also lay claim to having been ranked lower this time than in the 2006 study, dropping from 28 to 31. However, that’s nothing compared to the belly-flop they have done since the 1999 study, which had the state ranked 8th. So what happened? Well, if you are a glass half-full kind of guy you can take solace in the fact that Virginia’s plummeting in the rankings is more a product of the Commonwealth standing still, than going backwards. Since the 1999 study, when the state reached its financial disclosure apex, Virginia’s ethics laws have remained static and consequently it has been surpassed by states like Louisiana, Georgia, Kansas and New Jersey, which have made significant improvements.
From the study: “Virginia state legislators must fill out a statement of economic interest annually and must disclose outside employment or investment information. But the state lacks the necessary oversight to ensure that the forms are filled out correctly. While other states have made efforts to ensure accuracy, often with the creation of an independent commission, Virginia’s legislators are mostly left to police themselves.” Just as damning, while 29 states, eight of whom have done so since 2006, have improved public access by making these disclosure forms available online; guess who’s still not one of them?
What about the Virginia Public Access Project, you may ask? Well, yes, campaign disclosures are available online through a private group. But it isn’t enough for the Center that Virginia works with a private group. They require the state itself to make disclosures available. To make matters worse, despite the fact that Virginia doesn’t make disclosures available online, we are one of the 8 states that charge more than 50 cents per page for copying campaign finance reports in person.
So what would Virginia have to do to get back into the top 10 nationally? Well, first off, Virginia politicians would have to disclose more information about their employers. They would have to report outside employment starting at a lower income threshold, include their job titles and job descriptions and provide more information about how much money they make from each employer.
They would be required to give more information about directorships and the threshold for reporting investments would be lowered. Finally, there would need to be a central office for disclosures, we would have to stop having people who inspect the records sign a release form, the fee for copying records in person would have to be reduced, disclosures would have to be made available on the web and the state would have to penalize and name late filers.
Kiel Stone and Jeremy Beales are the editors of Bacon's Rebellion.
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Thank you for mentioning VPAP in your posting. Just to clarify — the headline refers to “campaign finance” disclosure while the study you cite dealt with an entirely different type of disclosure, legislators’ personal financial holdings. It’s easy to confuse the two, as several media outlets did when the report was issued. Campaign finance disclosure deals with money raised by candidates’ political committees; personal financial disclosure deals with legislators’ stock holdings, debt, land holdings, etc. The VPAP Website — http://www.vpap.org — makes it easier for the public to view both types of disclosures for General Assembly candidates.
I agree with Mr. Poole; you have conflated legislators’ personal financial disclosure requirements with general campaign finance requirements. Two different animals.
In addition, it is quite laughable to say that Louisiana is leading the pack in ethics laws. Laws don’t mean anything if they are widely ignored, and Louisiana is well-known as a hotbed of political corruption.
Now, regarding campaign finance disclosure laws, over the last few years of doing campaign finance research, several weaknesses have become clear to me in Virginia’s system.
For one thing, it is still not required (as far as I know) for local candidates to electronically file their campaign finance reports. It’s overdue; and it’s just not that hard.
Second, if one wishes to view campaign finance reports in person, voter registrars (for local offices) require individuals who wish to view the books to sign in before they can crack the first one open. Why?
If one person signs in and then copies the data down and redistributes it to the public, say, via a newspaper or via VPAP, the “trail” of “who leaked the information” immediately goes cold. Why would bureaucrats, politicians, and politicians’ hangers-on want to know who wants to know? The sign-in requirement should be abolished.
Third, if an organization exists to collect donations from third parties to influence elections in Virginia, I think the public has a right to know not just the single source of funds but also “who funded the funder”. A current example is Common Sense VA, which is not a grassroots organization by any stretch — it is a front organization for the Democratic Governors Association, which in turn is a cash conduit for government employee unions and other big labor unions, big pharma, big bridge builders, big insurance companies, big railroads, big box stores like Wal-Mart, and so on.
Perhaps a reform here would be a “addendum” line on disclosure reports. For example, for each contributor wishing to to participate in Virginia elections, they must have a “subfiling” reporting the revenue stream back to the prime donor. As an example: 1) Common Sense VA accepts a donation from the Democratic Governors’ Association. When they do, they must 2) then disclose all the donors to the Democratic Governors’ Association, to show where they got *their* money. 3) If the DGA’s source is a corporation or individual, they need go no further — but if it’s from another 527 organization, Common Sense VA must then file an addendum report on that “hidden” 527 organization; and so on until each listing gets back to the original source.
I also have no respect for a survey instrument that ranks Louisiana at the top, but you have highlighted some steps Virginia could take. The financial disclosure forms should be posted by the state where anybody can copy them for free — for incumbents and challengers. To charge 50 cents a page to copy campaign reports is to send the message, don’t bother coming in — we don’t want you seeing these records. Any attempt to get people to sign in to inspect public records in person is nothing short of intimidation and even to ask should be prohibited by law. Just how much personal financial information incumbents and candidates should have to reveal is a hard line to draw, but job titles seem reasonable. All campaign finance reports, including local, should be submitted electronically in a standard format that is free for the asking. Any candidate who can’t find a volunteer that minimally computer literate shouldn’t be running. These changes should not come because of this survey — but it would nice if some of them came without a scandal, which is what it will probably take. (FYI, I’m on David’s board at VPAP, and I think the survey erred in ignoring that service, which fills the void with the active support of both the Board of Elections and many, many legislators.)