Reform Institute Applauds Ohio Campaign Finance Reform Efforts; Institute Supports Ohio's Comprehensive Framework for State Reforms, as Espoused in it's Report,

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ALEXANDRIA, VA –- The Reform Institute, a nonpartisan government reform organization whose Advisory Board is chaired by Senator John McCain, today applauded the Ohio legislature's efforts to improve the state's campaign finance laws. The legislature is in special session working to pass comprehensive campaign finance reform.

"This law would increase disclosure of interest group campaign activity and limit corporate and union 'soft money,' and those are two key steps toward keeping Ohio's politics transparent and free of corruption," said Richard Davis, the Institute's president. "When the Supreme Court upheld the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 at the federal level, the states were effectively given a legislative model to create their own campaign laws that build public confidence by establishing accountability and transparency.

Members of the Ohio legislature are very wisely following that model."

While lauding the provisions requiring disclosure and limiting soft money, the Institute expressed concern about a provision quadrupling the individual and PAC contribution limits.

"We recognize that the cost of campaigns is skyrocketing, and candidates need cash to get their message out," said Cecilia Martinez, the Institute's executive director. "But under the new proposal, a husband and wife could donate $100,000 to a candidate by giving the maximum of $10,000 each in both the primary and the general and $30,000 each to the state party fund. That'

s just too much money from one source. It threatens to defeat the whole point of contribution limits, which is to fight the appearance and reality that contributors are writing checks in exchange for influence."

The Institute also opposes a so-called "poison pill" provision that was added to the measure by amendment. The provision would require that if a court finds any portion of the package unconstitutional, the entire bill must be struck down. The Institute discourages such measures, preferring severability provisions that allow the constitutional aspects of broad campaign finance reform laws to remain in effect even if some provisions are struck down. That course allows important reform measures to become law, while allowing legislators to rework problematic provisions.

The Ohio Legislature is grappling with key issues the Institute addresses in its new publication, Enhancing Values: Practical Campaign Reforms for States, which provides a guide for states seeking to reform their campaign finance laws. The publication emphasizes fundamental democratic values and principles, and outlines "best practices" in reform ranging from public campaign funding programs to disclosure and "soft money" regulations.

"There is no one-size-fits-all solution to the problems in our fifty state election systems," said Senator John McCain. "What's important is that reformers continue working with elected officials and community leaders, debating the merits of reform proposals in an open, public forum."

Enhancing Values: Practical Campaign Reforms for States was assembled by a team of leading national experts, including Dr. Anthony Corrado of Colby College, Professor Daniel Ortiz of the University of Virginia Law School and former FEC Chairman Trevor Potter, now legal counsel to the Reform Institute. The report is part of the Reform Institute's State Strategies Initiative, which works to move the campaign finance debate beyond the federal government to states across the nation, and part of the research series Making Democracy Work.

Enhancing Values: Practical Campaign Reforms for States

The Reform Institute is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational organization representing an independent, thoughtful voice for reform in the campaign finance and election administration debates.

Reform Institute, 211 N. Union Street, Ste. 200, Alexandria, VA 22314
phone: 703.535.6897 fax: 703.683.6891 info@reforminstitute.org

FEC: Turning Out the Watchdogs
New York Times Editorial, January 13, 2005

To the immense gratification of party bosses, the Federal Election Commission exercised vigilance over last year's record campaign spending with all the industry of a croupier making sure the players have chips at the ready. Its greatest contribution to protecting the house odds was the mind-boggling decision to allow a new pipeline for unregulated big donations. This fed shadow-party groups created expressly to get around the new controls on corporations, labor and fat-cat donors. A majority of party appointees to the F.E.C. gummed over the law strategically, once again performing as laissez-faire enablers of shady campaigners.

It is past time to do something about the commission. Senator John McCain understandably wants it abolished. He makes a convincing case, supported by a federal judge's ruling last September that struck down 15 separate F.E.C. interpretations of the new campaign law as devices for creating loopholes, fostering corruption and inviting "rampant circumvention" by party hacks.

It will be a tall order to prod the current Congress, purring with fresh incumbency, into scrapping the commission for an independent body of true regulators who are invested in voters, not fund-raisers. Looking for a middle road, Washington reformers have begun circulating an intriguing proposal rooted in the expectation that four of the six F.E.C. seats will become vacant in the next three months.

Nominations have usually come from Congress by way of party leaders' diktats, and that's the heart of the problem. But the law actually provides for the president to make the nominations if he chooses. In the campaign, President Bush ran afoul of the Democrats' aggressive shadow-party groups, condemning them and promising a crackdown.

Here's his chance. What could be more stunning for Mr. Bush's long-promised venture into bipartisanship than to pick meritorious F.E.C. nominees who are not beholden to big-money political leaders? Well, just as Mr. Bush has the power to nominate, we have the power to dream.

OHIO: Disclosure, at last
Editorial, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland), December 19, 2004

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The people finally have been assured the right to know the sources of the money that flows through state politics

To its credit, the Ohio General Assembly fixed the most unconscionable faults in the state's campaign finance laws.
The bill passed by the House and Senate late last week essentially requires prompt and complete disclosure of all money that pours into the political process.
And it was the secrecy shrouding some state and county political accounts that invited corruption and facilitated the scandals that so tainted the legislative process and stained the careers of some prominent Republican legislators.
Disclosure is the centerpiece of the new bill. And it was a lack of disclosure in the old laws that caused this page for years to denounce the loopholes that allowed legislators to hide secret money accounts and prevented the public from learning the identity of donors to those accounts.
The bill that Gov. Bob Taft - an ardent champion of full disclosure requirements - soon will sign cures these deficiences by mandating what State Sen. Randy Gardner, a suburban Toledo Republican, describes as "perhaps the fullest disclosure of any state in the United States."
So while on balance we believe the new law represents an improvement, some of its aspects could prove troubling. Some county political chairs believe the bill unfairly penalizes local party organizations, and there is significant opposition to raising the donation limits from $2,500 to $10,000.
Indeed, some portions of the new law may create loopholes that will need to be closed, or provisions that smack of unfairness. If and when that proves to be the case, we and others will demand that the legislature quickly correct those problems.
But the legislature has passed a law that without doubt improves substantially on the old one. The public has the right to know the source of every penny that enters the political process. This law fulfills that essential requirement.

Reform Institute Applauds Ohio Campaign Finance Reform Efforts