Reform hopes wither
Democrats fail to follow through on campaign finance promises
Coming into this legislative session, hopes were high that a Democratic majority would follow through on promises to enact substantive reform of Virginia’s campaign finance rules, imposing contribution limits and tougher rules about the use of donations.
Those hopes were misplaced as Democrats killed many of the most promising proposals in committee. The surviving bills face an uphill battle as, once again, those who pledged to fix the system have instead succumbed to protecting it.
Virginia is generally considered an outlier in its approach to regulating campaign spending, as it uses “radical transparency” rather than hard-and-fast rules as its instrument of accountability. Donations and spending must be reported, and that information is made available to the public.
The reasoning is that public scrutiny will achieve behavioral change — that people may be less inclined to financially support a candidate who spends that money on frivolous personal expenses, and that officials can be cowed into trustworthy lawmaking should their donors be available for review.
There’s plenty of evidence to suggest that approach is naive and no longer suitable for a modern commonwealth. Lawmakers continue to do the bidding of their most powerful benefactors and few Virginians have the time or inclination to pore through finance reports. It’s why campaign reformers consistently rank Virginia as having the weakest regulations in the nation.
That remains true despite annual efforts to impose some moderate restrictions on the use of campaign funds in Virginia.
Last year, for example, the Democratic-led Senate passed a bill that would have restricted lawmakers’ use of campaign contributions for such things as country club memberships, hotel stays, lavish dinners or even vehicle costs. While federal candidates are barred from spending on luxuries considered outside the scope of their service, all of that is legal in Virginia.
That measure died in the Republican-led House. But Republicans aren’t to blame for that same legislation running into similar problems this year, when Democrats hold majorities in both chambers.
While the Senate passed the bill, sponsored by Sen, Jennifer B. Boysko, D-Fairfax, the House killed its companion measure in committee, suggesting the Senate measure is likely to meet a similar fate.
The House also rejected legislation to limit donations of more than $10,000 to candidates in Virginia state House races and more than $20,000 to those in statewide or state Senate elections in a given election cycle.
Proposals to prohibit campaign contributions from regulated utilities, such as Dominion Power, and to limit the amount a candidate can self-finance a campaign are also dead for the year.
It seems that Democrats may be hopping mad about how campaign finance is regulated in Virginia — many said as much while seeking elected office last year — but not enough to actually do anything about it.
Polls consistently show that Virginians want to see tougher rules governing money in campaigns; Christopher Newport University’s Wason Center found, in a poll sponsored by BigMoneyOutVA, that 75% support donation limits and 73% want greater restrictions on the personal use of that money.
Virginia shouldn’t forget, as well, the legal storm that battered former Gov.
Bob McDonnell regarding donations seen by prosecutors as being a pay-forplay scheme. While the former governor’s conviction on those charges was overturned, few could take away from that episode that everything’s fine in the commonwealth.
It turns out that even though the general public wants reform, those responsible for enacting it — and who benefit directly from the status quo — aren’t eager to do so. That bodes poorly for a citizen legislature, which the General Assembly purports to be, as the volume of money pouring into campaign coffers creates further distance between public officials and the people they serve.
There may still be hope that lawmakers will reverse course, but it dims further by the day. And means that deep-pocketed donors will still set the agenda for the General Assembly at the expense of regular Joes and Janes who can’t pay.