Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Election board tightens rules
Candidates could be required to give more detailed campaign expense reports.
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roanoke.com/politics
Virginia political candidates are likely to face much closer scrutiny of their financial records under new policies being devised by the state board of elections after an investigation of Roanoke Del. Onzlee Ware's expenditures.
State board staff members confirmed Tuesday they are, for the first time, drafting policies for detailed investigation of candidates' financial expenditures.
Those should be ready for adoption by summer.
The state board's campaign finance manager, David Allen, asked for amendments to Ware's expenditure reports in a letter dated June 10.
The request was based on questions raised by the opponent Ware defeated in the Democratic primary the day before.
Board requests for amended reports are commonplace during every election season, Allen said.
But this time, what was unusual -- indeed, what some longtime observers of the process say was unprecedented -- was that Ware was asked to provide receipts and other specific documentation of his spending.
In the past, candidates have been asked only to revise totals, or provide details about who received money or its exact use.
For instance, candidates are not supposed to simply say a payment is a "reimbursement" but to specify what the reimbursement was for.
Ware, who is running for re-election to the 11th District House seat against Republican Troy Bird, provided revised reports for the first two quarters of this year on Monday.
Ware has insisted his reports were no different from those of any other legislative candidate and in an interview this week said he didn't understand why his were singled out for the more thorough review.
He hired Chris Piper, the former head of the state board's campaign finance division now employed by a Washington law firm, to advise him on the request. Piper declined to comment for this story.
What is apparent now is that Ware is on the front edge of a significant change in the way the state board is going to handle such complaints in the future.
Allen, who has been campaign finance manager since August, said his department does "occasionally ... scrutinize others as closely as Delegate Ware."
But others who have been associated with the process over past years say they cannot remember any candidate being asked to document his or her spending so scrupulously.
Elections board policy adviser James Alcorn said Tuesday he's been at the agency for only three years and, "I don't know what they did in the past." But, he said, "when the complaint did come in against Delegate Ware, we had a responsibility to look into it."
Allen acknowledged that the way his office handled the Ware complaint was in some ways a break with past practice.
Before, someone seeking an investigation of a candidate's spending typically was referred to the commonwealth's attorney for the candidate's district.
"But if we can resolve something like an incomplete filing simply by asking for documentation, why should we burden the commonwealth's attorneys with something like that?" Allen asked.
What's not clear is just how much more work the new policies could trigger. The agency "will set some threshold, some guidelines about inquiries and complaints, about how they are to be handled and submitted so we can efficiently go through them without having to spend a lot of time on them," Allen said.
Ware essentially ignored the questions about his spending during the primary campaign against Martin Jeffrey, despite the persistent efforts of Mark Powell, Jeffrey's campaign manager, to bring them to the attention of everyone from local reporters to Gov. Tim Kaine.
In a seven-page e-mail to Allen and others on May 19, Powell detailed a series of what he considered irregularities in Ware's financial reports, as well as extensive quotes from the state election code.
Powell questioned Ware's donations to a Juneteenth event he sponsored as an improper mingling of political funds in a nonprofit organization.
He cited "scores of instances" from 2007 through 2009 in which the addresses of persons paid from campaign funds were either incomplete or missing.
Powell asserted that many of the records of "reimbursements" were suspiciously round numbers, such as $500 or $350, and that their descriptions were frequently vague.
And he contended that many expenditures, such as those for a YMCA membership or art framing, may have been "for personal use," which is forbidden by state law.
After examining Ware's records, Allen wrote his June 10 letter, which included a list of slightly more than 50 line items -- some dating back to 2004 -- for which he wanted additional information.
Allen asked for "supporting receipts and documentation" for all expenditures listed as "reimbursement," for one payee listed only as "cash," and for an item listed as "polls."
State law says the board of elections must notify anyone "submitting an incomplete report of the need for additional information ... no later than 21 days after the report due date."
While that left a question of whether Allen could require amended reports for earlier filing periods, Ware agreed to comply with the requests. He filed an amended report for the most recent period ending May 27, as well as the preceding one, ending March 31.
He said it would take some time to dig up the older records, but that he would file them as well. And now, he said, "I'm keeping every receipt in the world, it doesn't matter what the receipt is for."
Ware insisted he actually had been reimbursed for less than he spent on many items, and he defended all of his spending, even on items Powell insisted were personal.
Allen also noted that spending that might seem personal to one person, such as a club membership, could be defended by another as an ongoing campaign expense to make contacts with potential contributors and voters.
The complaint and Ware's response will be sent to the state board for consideration at its July meeting, Allen said.
"What I can't stress enough with Delegate Ware," Allen said, "was my concern not to have it look like we were on a witch hunt out to get somebody. We're not. Our job is to make sure the facts are available for the public so they can make an educated decision on what to do."
Powell expressed his frustration with the process Monday in an e-mail to Allen saying the amended reports did not clear up the "troubling pattern" of campaign spending he detailed in his complaint.
In an interview, he said, "The problem as I see it is that the state board is unable to review the documents in a timely fashion" because of a lack of manpower.
