Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 1, 1993 TAG: 9302010077
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GREG SCHNEIDER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
VA. CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION LIMITS URGED
Torn between spending a month in Bermuda or donating the money to your favorite state delegate?Start packing. A General Assembly committee on Sunday endorsed legislation to limit campaign contributions to $1,000 from individuals and $2,500 from political action committees.
Along with approval of a handful of companion measures, the action by the House Privileges and Elections Committee signals that the assembly may be poised for its boldest action ever on campaign finance reform.
"I think it sends an important message that we're aware there are perceptions from other states' experiences that the [political] process appears to be tainted, and we're going to keep that from happening in Virginia," said Del. Glenn Croshaw, D-Virginia Beach.
Croshaw introduced the contribution limits bill and now will take it to the full House of Delegates. The measure, as approved by the committee, would go into effect Jan. 1, 1994, and would cover only candidates for the General Assembly, not for the positions of governor, lieutenant governor or attorney general.
Current Virginia law places no restrictions on how much one person or special interest group can contribute to a political campaign.
Croshaw's measure goes even further than changes recommended last fall by an ethics commission appointed by Gov. Douglas Wilder. The panel urged that individual contributions to delegates be limited to $1,000, but that senators be allowed $2,000 from each individual.
Croshaw said it wouldn't be fair to allow senators more money, because they have larger districts and therefore more potential donors. Also, both types of candidates spend similar amounts on media advertising, he said.
The limits on political action committees would have shaken up the most recent statewide elections. To take just one group as an example: The Virginia Bankers Association in 1991 gave contributions greater than $2,500 to 20 members of the House of Delegates.
Six members of the Senate got contributions from the same group that would have been too high under the proposed law.
Several other ground-breaking ethics bills came before the Privileges and Elections Committee on Sunday:
The committee unanimously endorsed a bill sponsored by Del. George Grayson, D-Williamsburg, requiring lobbyists to make an annual report of their expenditures for the previous 12 months.
Now, lobbyists must account only for what they spend between Nov. 15 and 60 days after the General Assembly session ends. Any wining and dining that takes place over the summer goes unreported.
Another Croshaw bill won unanimous approval; this one would force any local or district committee of a political party that raises or spends more than $10,000 to file a statement accounting for the money.
Currently, only statewide arms of the political parties must account for their finances. That allows special interest groups to funnel money through local committees without having their influence made public.
Action was delayed on a bill requiring lobbyists from government agencies to register just like any private lobbyist. Members wanted a better sense of who the measure would affect.
The committee killed a bill that would have prohibited legislators and certain state officials from lobbying the General Assembly for two years after leaving office. The measure was referred for further study to a special committee looking at ethics questions.
Campaign reform still has a long way to go this session. The House Privileges and Elections committee has almost two-dozen more such bills to consider in the next week, and companion measures await action in the Senate. And all of it, of course, must eventually go before the full assembly.