Tuesday, October 25, 2005
Editorial: Full disclosure of campaign cash
Who contributed $500,000 to Bob McDonnell's campaign for attorney general? The public has a right to know.
From the RoundTable blog
Read the latest entries
Virginia campaign finance laws appear based on the odd principle that the corrupting influence of unlimited financial contributions is somehow mitigated by full disclosure.
Donors to candidates for Virginia office can write checks for $10,000, $20,000 or, conceivably, even millions of dollars.
The only proviso is that candidates must identify donors in a timely manner.
For some, even that minimal requirement appears too constricting.
Republican candidate for attorney general Bob McDonnell has received $500,000 or more from the Republican State Leadership Committee. The RSLC donated the money through an affiliated Virginia political action committee, which has so far refused to identify the original donors of that largess.
The RSLC is a "527 organization." It need only report the sources of its donations to the IRS. The next reporting deadline isn't until the end of the year -- well after the election.
Democrats speculate -- with no proof offered thus far -- that McDonnell supporter Pat Robertson is funneling cash to the candidate through the RSLC, in addition to the $36,000 in donations Robertson has already made openly.
No one who knows the truth about the source of that chunk of dough will say. Even McDonnell's campaign insists the candidate doesn't know the original source of the donations.
Timely disclosure of donors is the sole campaign finance "protection" offered Virginians. By accepting the RSLC money, the McDonnell campaign is circumventing that lone shred of accountability.
The RSLC can argue legal niceties all day long, but as Daniel Lathrop, an official at the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity told the Charlottesville Daily Progress, "The truth is that clearly [the Republican groups] are evading the intent of Virginia's finance laws whether this is legal or not."
The loophole exploited by the McDonnell campaign should be closed. The Virginia State Board of Elections has said that the Virginia arm of RSLC should have disclosed an itemized list of contributors, but the SBE has no real enforcement authority.
The elections board is also considering regulations requiring all 527 organizations operating in the state to set up state political action committees that would raise all money themselves. Out-of-state transfers from parent organizations would be prohibited.
If the floodgates of political cash are to be left wide open and unrestricted in Virginia, the people of the state are, at the very least, entitled to know the source of the cash flow.
If the state elections board can't guarantee such accountability, the General Assembly should.
