Handwritten and paper campaign finance reports would go the way of the dial telephone under recommendations from a bipartisan task force assigned to update California’s aging campaign finance laws.
The Fair Political Practices Commission’s 25-member subcommittee, co-led by former commission attorney Bob Stern and California GOP chief counsel Chuck Bell, has proposed the state move toward electronic campaign report filing for all state candidates and ballot measure committees regardless of how much money they raise or spend.
“Our feeling is that electronic filing is now, not the future,” said Stern, who now leads the Center for Governmental Studies, a Southern California-based public policy think tank. “Electronic filing is true disclosure. It’s important to get these campaign reports out of the file cabinets and let people look at them from their dining room tables.”
In the long-term, California should provide a single Web site “in which state and local campaign filings would be accessible, either by direct filing or by link,” Bell said. “There is a degree of transparency that crosses a lot of boundaries when you do that.”
While the commission has the authority to move ahead with some of the proposals on its own, many of the recommendations will require legislation and, the far bigger challenge these days, money.
The panel suggests the formation of a joint commission and secretary of state working committee that would develop and pursue the electronic platform. The secretary of state operates the state’s existing campaign finance website, which the task force agrees needs a major technological upgrade.
The task force, created by commission Chairman Dan Schnur, will present its nine pages of suggested reforms at the commission’s Friday meeting in Sacramento.
Its other proposals include:
The PUC prohibits robocalls, so most campaigns simply hire out-of-state call centers outside California jurisdiction. Committees that use robocalls would be required to maintain copies of robocalls subject to audit.
The disclosure statement must be larger and contain clearer distinctions between measure or candidates that have paid to be included and those who have not.
Most of the task force’s suggestions revolve around campaign finance mechanics rather than the more controversial spectrum surrounding the subject, such as public financing of campaigns, as some argue, or, as others seek, the elimination of all reporting.
“We tried to tackle issues that we thought there would be are reasonable chance of consensus,” Bell said.
“We focused on the nuts and bolts.”
Contact Lisa Vorderbrueggen at 925-945-4773.
campaign reform: online
Read the Fair Political Practices Commission’s Political Reform Act Task Force proposals at www.fppc.ca.gov, then click on the agenda for Jan. 28, 2011.
