Analysis: Illinois campaign reform bill may help hide contributions
UPDATE, 1:30 p.m. — The Senate just now gave final passage to the bill, as expected. It passed on a partisan 36-22 vote. Gov. Pat Quinn is expected to sign it.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - The Illinois Senate today is expected to take up a major campaign-finance reform bill that would impose the first-ever contribution limits in Illinois. It will almost certainly pass, if only because of the political hammer on them. If they don’t do it today–last day of session for 2009–this will go down in history as the year the Legislature impeached a governor for alleged corruption, but then couldn’t muster enough votes to reform the system.
A lot has been made of the fact that the new bill seems to create a loophole that leaves mostly untouched the power of a few legislative leaders. But there’s another potentially onerous aspect of that bill that hasn’t gotten much discussion, and probably should before final passage. (It’s involved; if you’re not a real campaign policy geek, you might want to stop reading here.)
Current Illinois law doesn’t limit contributions at all, but has tough requirements on disclosure — that is, publicly reporting who is giving you the money, how much, and when. You have to tell, and you generally have to do it before the election.
The new bill seems to quietly erase the “when” part of that requirement. In fact, unless I’m missing something, it looks like this legislation could allow politicians to completely hide any embarrassing contributions they get until after an election is over.
Currently, candidates are required to reveal the receipt of a campaign donation within a certain span of time after receiving it. How long they have to report it depends on how close to the election they are, but most donations have to be reported before the election.
The new bill would require more immediate reporting of donations, which certainly sounds like a good thing. But it also changes the current rule that defines when a donation is “received.”
This is from Section 9-10, paragraph (d), of the new bill (SB1466):
“For the purpose of this section, a contribution is considered received on the date . . . it was deposited in a bank . . . ”
In other words, the new bill changes that rule so the disclosure clock doesn’t start ticking until after the candidate decides to deposit the money, instead of when he receives it.
So if a candidate has been carrying water for, say, the casino industry, and he gets an influx of casino-industry checks a month before the election, the candidate wouldn’t necessarily have to share that information with the voters right away (as he would under the current system).
Instead, he could stick those checks in a drawer, and just have his campaign spend the equivalent amount of money through loans or credit cards — secure in the knowledge that his casino pals have already provided him with a way to erase that debt after the election is over. Only after he’s safely settled into a new term would the voters know what he knew about who was helping him out.
House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago, who ushered the bill through the House late Thursday, was asked about the provision a couple times in floor debate. He said it was meant to prevent a situation where candidates might unintentionally violate the disclosure law because of confusion over when they’re required to report the checks.
That argument isn’t ridiculous — the State Board of Elections told me this morning that it sometimes does happen under current law, which can put candidates in danger of getting slapped with fines they don’t deserve. It will be up to the Senate to decide whether that’s a big enough problem to set up a system where we might not know who is funding a given election until after it’s over.
Can anyone out there tell me why campaign finance reform, to prevent nonsense such as this story describes, need be any more compliccated than to prohibit contributions in kind or in money, from organizations of any sort? Include in “organizations” everything from Monsanto to the IBEW to the Sierra Club to ACORN to… hell, even SPEBSQSA ! This preserves freedom of speech for individuals and gets the government out of the business of deciding who should be able to contribute (e.g., are you really a charity? )
Really folks, ain’t this simple? Wouldn’t it, with simple rules for disclosure reveal who’s really buying our politicians? What function do organization contributions provide except to conceal the identities of contributors ? Please help out this dummy (me) who thinks something this simple might work.
Tom Beebe - Your scenario certainly sounds good, but then you’re going to have organizations giving individuals money to donate to a specific candidate. If there were a clause in the law requiring individual donors to report any organizations they work for or are affiliated with, then it might work, but I think your solution would only change the reporting aspect and not really do much to counteract the actual problem. What I don’t understand is where this “confusion” is coming from regarding the existing reporting requirements. Just amend the bill to require the money to be reported when received, not when it’s deposited and anyone that can’t figure that out, can pay the fines. Report it as soon as you receive it and you won’t have any problems. Don’t report it in the timespan required by law and you pay the price. Seems pretty simple to me, but then I’m just an average citizen, not a political heavyweight.
As best as I can tell, Missouri’s ethics law doesn’t define “received” at all. And even if we go with the common definition, that same sinister politician could simply have a drawer full of post-dated checks, and nobody would be the wiser.
Thanks, Snootch and Nick; you’re both right on about there being other parts of campaign finance reform (organizations funneling money through individuals, timing of reporting). Do either of you have a problem with the “no organizations” idea as a start ? Perhaps an individual contribution need have a disclaimer attached. As to the timing issue, it sounds more than a bit like it would be associated with candidates making “loans” to themselves,,, for repayment how, and by whom?
Support “no-orgs” as a start ?
The reason you can’t ban “orgs” from donating is that the Supreme Court has ruled this unconstitutional (Buckley v. Valeo) because it infringes on “free speech.” We can disagree with this ruling, but it is firmly established. At any rate, the money from the “orgs” would just go to buy advertisements, etc. which would still influence elections and possibly lead to corrupt relationships. So in the world we live in you need to support the “orgs” that you believe in so they can influence the process.
How about if the make it where anyone or any organization can contribute as much as they want, but have to contribute equally to all candidates for that office. That would level the playing field and let the person with the better and smarter ideas win the race. How come common sense evades all our elected officials?
There is one good point about having the date deposited be the determining factor. There is a paper trail that can be produced showing when that occurred. It is a record from the bank, not the candidate. How can you prove when a contribution was “received”? — especially when it is sent by mail? You’re fixating on the big campaigns — what about us “little guys” out there running for school board, county office, etc., who have to follow all these rules, too, and are subject to those fines for not following them because of there lack of clarity.
If a candidate waits until after the election to deposit the checks, then s/he can’t spend that money before the election. That’s what campaign contributions are for - to spend on things like advertising, staff, etc. The checks don’t do a whole lot of good sitting in a desk drawer.
Paying attention to legislators’ opinions on an ethics bill is like paying attention to the foxes’ opinions on the management of the henhouse.Oh well….it’s the immutable Illinois political system in full flower under our accidental governor Pat. Now, if we just give him billions of dollars to dish out to “campaign contributors”
via his income tax increase, we’ll be back to normal.