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The Senate passed a wide-ranging, ambitious campaign finance and
ethics reform package that strengthens the integrity of the political process
by closing loopholes to capture all “lobbyists”, wiping out lobbyist
campaign contributions, and reducing the maximum annual contribution to
political parties.
Our intention with this bill is to increase transparency, clarity and
consistency in state government. We do this by reforming lobbying,
campaign finance and ethics laws.
The Senate bill clarifies the definition of “lobbyist” as anyone paid
to advocate for a third party and requires strict performance rules for
lobbyists including registration with the Secretary of State, annual
training, detailed reporting and official identification.
Furthermore, the legislation prohibits lobbyists from making campaign
contributions and also reduces the maximum annual contribution to a
political party by a committee or individual from $5,000 to $500.
In order to protect every citizen’s right to access state government,
the legislation creates the category of “specialist” for any employee
advocating less than 50 hours in a six-month period for the company or organization
for which they work. Additionally, there is a registration and reporting
exemption in the specialist category for non-profits and individuals who
engage in advocacy for less than 15 hours in a six-month period.
The Senate ethics reform bill, unlike any other currently filed, makes
significant reforms in campaign financing. In addition to bringing down
the so-called 71st Fund’s maximum contributions and banning lobbyist
campaign contributions, the bill also requires transparency for
electioneering communications, more commonly known as “Swift Boat”
advertising.
Under this provision, all third-parties who produce mailings and ads
that either support or criticize a candidate or campaign must disclose
their expenditures and sources of funding.
The Senate bill also makes an important distinction between “gift” and
“bribery”. While the legislation does not ban gifts outright
because of constitutional considerations, it maintains that an elected
official accepting a gift in exchange for a particular action is illegal
and increases the penalty for bribery convictions up to 10 years
imprisonment, a $100,000 fine, or both.
In an effort to improve fairness and transparency, the Senate
legislation expands the adjudicatory process for alleged ethics violations
to include the Division of Administrative Law Appeals (DALA) under the
Executive Office for Administration and Finance.
Currently, the state Ethics Commission investigates, prosecutes and
acts as fact-finder in civil ethics cases. Under the Senate bill, the
Ethics Commission can refer a case to DALA, which in turn would make a
recommendation for settlement or punishment. The Ethics Commission,
however, still determines the remedy to be imposed.
The involvement of DALA’s experts in adjudication is meant to ensure
that due process is served by avoiding a singular, isolated investigation
and hearing. The Senate bill also adopts existing reform proposals, and
increases penalties, including:
·
Giving the Secretary of State subpoena
power, with judicial consent;
·
Expanding revolving door restrictions on
lobbying to the executive branch;
·
Increasing late filing penalties for
lobbyists to $50 per day for first 20 days and $100 per day thereafter;
·
Increasing criminal penalties for lobbyist
registration violations to 5 years imprisonment, $10,000 fine, or both;
·
Increasing penalties for late-filed
campaign reports from $10 per day and not more than $2,500 to $25 per day
and not more than $5,000;
·
Increasing the number of campaign reports
filed by political candidates to twice in non-election years and three
times in election years;
·
Requiring that income derived from bribes,
corrupt gifts and illegal activity counts as gross income for tax
reporting purposes;
Many of these improvements were made in response to concerns of
inappropriate access to elected officials by certain people. With this
bill, we protect access to government, but make it clear that a lobbyist
is a lobbyist.
The bill is now headed to conference committee with the House of
Representatives.
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