Report on Loopholes and End Runs Around Campaign Finance Laws from Center for Governmental Studies

End runs around ethics and campaign finance laws are one of my favorite topics to write about. A sizeable percentage of the creative energies of government officials and their attorneys seems to go into coming up with ways of getting around these laws. And then arguing that such laws are of little value since you can't plug loopholes as fast as they can invent them.

The Center for Governmental Studies in California has just published a report on this very topic (although focused on the campaign finance side), aptly titled Loopholes, Tricks and End Runs: Evasions of Campaign Finance Laws, and a Model Law to Block Them (by Molly Milligan).

Many of the loopholes apply equally to government ethics, including legal defense funds, charitable fundraising, and reimbursed travel.

Although the report is 52 pages long, it's not at all daunting, because most of it consists of the model law. The model law provides for the disclosure of all money that goes to elected officials and candidates, with a rebuttable presumption that all money they receive or raise is for a political purpose. The model law also provides solutions to the major loopholes and end runs, and a contribution limit on the aggregate amount each individual gives, as well as smaller limits for contributions to candidate and other committees.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research, City Ethics
rwechsler@cityethics.org
203-230-2548