Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, January 3, 1993 TAG: 9301030073
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DALE EISMAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
PANEL MAKES MOCKERY OF REFORM
I should've known better.After deadening my backside and my brain (yes, even journalists generally can tell them apart) sitting through countless public hearings, caucuses and committee meetings, I should've known that the General Assembly would never EVER get serious about policing political campaign money.
But when House Speaker Tom Moss, who has taken more than his share of lumps on questions about political ethics, announced he was forming a special subcommittee on campaign reform, I thought change was in the wind. And when he promised that in 1993 the legislature will move forward on campaign finance, I made sure our paper had a reporter at the first subcommittee meeting.
Just call me "Sucker!"
As you may have seen on the news pages shortly before Christmas, the subcommittee sliced and diced University of Virginia law professor A.E. Dick Howard, who presented the recommendations of an ethics and campaign finance study commission he headed at the request of Gov. Douglas Wilder.
Perhaps irked that Wilder didn't put any of them or their colleagues on the commission, legislators mocked Howard and the group's proposals.
Senate Majority Leader Hunter Andrews of Hampton, responsible for most of what's good about the current campaign laws, was particularly caustic. To Howard's offer to summarize the commission's "most important" proposals, Andrews snapped: "You mean you have some you think are important and others you think are not important? Shouldn't we be the judge of that? I'm amazed you would tell us . . . some are more important than others."
So it went. Several members of Moss' subcommittee said they liked some of the recommendations; none was specific.
They were outspoken about what they didn't like, however. House Democratic Leader Richard Cranwell of Vinton, for example, disapproved of the suggestion that the state do random audits of campaign financial reports.
"Don't those things get audited every two years when you run for re-election [by] your opponent?" he asked indignantly.
The answer is no, they don't. Except for maybe the IRS, nobody has authority to examine a candidate's books. An opponent, if the legislator has one (Cranwell hasn't for a decade), can review the financial reports every candidate submits to the Board of Elections. But candidates can lie on those reports without fear because no one can check their ledgers or their campaign bank accounts against their disclosure statements.
Virginia law is full of such loopholes, many big enough to accommodate a scandal. Consider:
To make sure lobbyists aren't buying votes, we require them to report what they spend to influence legislators. But while they lobby year-round, they need disclose only their spending between Nov. 15 and adjournment of the assembly the following February or March. As the commission observed, "in politics, hidden money Except for maybe the IRS, nobody has authority to examine a candidate's books. is dangerous money."
Nothing in the law limits the ability of state agency chiefs and other executives to leave government and go immediately to work for private businesses trying to influence their old agencies. As the commission pointed out, current law would permit an employee of the State Corporation Commission, involved in reviewing a specific utility rate request, to leave the SCC and go to work for the utility to defend the request.
In all, the Howard commission made 37 proposals for strengthening the campaign finance, lobbying and ethics laws. Many are simple, common-sense ideas, like the suggestion that the state simplify campaign finance reporting by using the reporting deadlines set for federal elections. Others are understandably controversial, like the suggestion of caps on contributions to legislative candidates.
The commission said it "does not see a crisis of corruption or impropriety that directly jeopardizes Virginia government. . . . One question that repeatedly arose in our deliberations was, `What evil are we correcting?' The evil is not lax standards or common abuses. The evil is complacency in thinking that it cannot happen to us."
A good point, and one that so far seems to have been missed.
Still, maybe there's hope. Del. Glenn Croshaw of Virginia Beach, a co-chairman of Moss' subcommittee, says the group will meet again and that he'll push this year for a $2,000 cap on donations to Senate and House candidates. He's already got a bill in to require financial reporting by local political party committees. Currently, only the state party operations need report.
"I think something's going to come out this year," Croshaw said. And by next year, he expects there'll be major reforms. Croshaw figures he could support "at least half" of the Howard commission's proposals and says he thinks most of his colleagues feel similarly.
"The question is, which half," he said.
Dale Eisman is chief of the Roanoke Times & World-News Richmond bureau.