There are significant campaign finance developments to report from Virginia. The new law, sponsored by a freshman Senator, requires increased disclosure for certain contributing political organizations. Virgnia is a strong disclosure state. The effective date of the new law is January 1, 2009.
The law may be an attempt to solve an issue that arose in a recent statewide contest.
When a campaign pays someone, who winds up paying someone else for something, who should a campaign report as the payee on its disclosure reports? The ultimate payee? In a recent story ripped from the headlines, a WSJ article reports that
that federal authorities are now seeking records involving payments to Kristian B. Stiles, Spitzer’s political fund-raising consultant. A source told the NYT that authorities requested documentation for thousands of dollars in reimbursements to Stiles, who reportedly worked on Spitzer’s campaigns since 2003 and directs national fund-raising.
The FEC has a few closed matters involving this question, yet due to their age they do not seem to appear in the Enforcement Query System. One of them involved a campaign reporting bulk payments to a payroll company, rather than individually itemizing salary payments to campaign workers.
A siginificant campaign finance reform bill is moving ahead in Kentucky (SB 8). Among a large number of changes and additions, the bill includes a provision regarding “frivolous complaints”:
The registry is authorized to impose a civil penalty for the filing of a frivolous complaint, and the filing of a frivolous complaint shall be a violation of this chapter. For purposes of this subsection, “frivolous complaint” means a complaint which is groundless and brought in bad faith, or is groundless and brought for the purpose of harassment.