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When Campaign Finance Oversight Sucks Up an Ethics Program's Resources
Monday, November 25th, 2013
Robert Wechsler
An
editorial in yesterday's New Orleans Times-Picayune points out
a problem that is common to many ethics programs that have
jurisdiction over both conflicts of interest and campaign
finance: campaign finance sucks up the program's resources,
leaving too few resources for other things, including the
collection of the fines they impose.
The editorial begins, "Louisiana's Ethics Board staff spends an inordinate amount of time processing campaign finance and disclosure filings and documenting reports that come in late or not at all. Meanwhile, candidates who accept improper contributions or violate other campaign rules often face no consequences because no one gets around to checking up on them."
The problem is that processing campaign reports, especially if they're not filed electronically, eats up staff time. Determining whether the reports are accurate or whether there is evidence of legal violations takes even more time. So it often isn't done. For example, the ethics board administrator said she didn't recall a single investigation involving limits on contributions from PACs since she joined the ethics program in 1997.
The newspaper did its own investigation, and found that nine officials had received $370,000 in excess PAC contributions since 2006.
The editorial concludes correctly that this "lax enforcement undermines the Ethics Board's effectiveness and the public's confidence in the system." It then goes on to share speculation by Public Affairs Research Council President Robert Scott that lawmakers might have done this by design, since they are under the ethics board's jurisdiction and have something to gain from lax enforcement.
Scott is quoted as saying, "Is this system created just to bog down the Ethics Board in minutiae so they can't take on any of the really big issues, they can't take on some of the real infractions?" This is a fair question to ask. If it wasn't intended from the start, it might have later been seen as something worth preserving. That is, it might have been considered a problem not worth trying to find a solution to.
The state treasurer, however, has proposed a partial solution: to have the state's new Office of Debt Recovery take over the collection of ethics fines. Revenue Secretary Tim Barfield and officials with the attorney general's office support this proposal. According to the editorial, the bulk of the money, minus a portion the law requires to go to the state police, would go to the ethics board to give it more resources for enforcement. This sounds like a good solution, as long as the Office of Debt Recovery doesn't make collection of ethics fines a low priority and is independent enough not to be influenced by politics.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
---
The editorial begins, "Louisiana's Ethics Board staff spends an inordinate amount of time processing campaign finance and disclosure filings and documenting reports that come in late or not at all. Meanwhile, candidates who accept improper contributions or violate other campaign rules often face no consequences because no one gets around to checking up on them."
The problem is that processing campaign reports, especially if they're not filed electronically, eats up staff time. Determining whether the reports are accurate or whether there is evidence of legal violations takes even more time. So it often isn't done. For example, the ethics board administrator said she didn't recall a single investigation involving limits on contributions from PACs since she joined the ethics program in 1997.
The newspaper did its own investigation, and found that nine officials had received $370,000 in excess PAC contributions since 2006.
The editorial concludes correctly that this "lax enforcement undermines the Ethics Board's effectiveness and the public's confidence in the system." It then goes on to share speculation by Public Affairs Research Council President Robert Scott that lawmakers might have done this by design, since they are under the ethics board's jurisdiction and have something to gain from lax enforcement.
Scott is quoted as saying, "Is this system created just to bog down the Ethics Board in minutiae so they can't take on any of the really big issues, they can't take on some of the real infractions?" This is a fair question to ask. If it wasn't intended from the start, it might have later been seen as something worth preserving. That is, it might have been considered a problem not worth trying to find a solution to.
The state treasurer, however, has proposed a partial solution: to have the state's new Office of Debt Recovery take over the collection of ethics fines. Revenue Secretary Tim Barfield and officials with the attorney general's office support this proposal. According to the editorial, the bulk of the money, minus a portion the law requires to go to the state police, would go to the ethics board to give it more resources for enforcement. This sounds like a good solution, as long as the Office of Debt Recovery doesn't make collection of ethics fines a low priority and is independent enough not to be influenced by politics.
Robert Wechsler
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics
---
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