A
third nationwide assessment of state-level
campaign finance disclosure programs has found
that 34 states received passing grades, and
16 states failed the evaluation and have unsatisfactory
campaign disclosure programs. Two states that
failed last year moved into the ranks of the
passing states this year, and one state that
passed in 2004 slipped to an F in 2005. The
2005 assessment found that overall, states
continued the trend of improvement identified
in Grading State Disclosure 2004.
Thirteen
states improved their grades from those received
in the 2004 study, while 30 remained the
same and seven states received lower grades. Since the initial Grading
State Disclosure study in 2003, 24 states have
improved their grades, and nearly every state
has made some improvement in its campaign finance
disclosure practices.
Grading
State Disclosure is a study by
the Campaign Disclosure Project – a
collaboration of the California Voter Foundation,
the Center for Governmental Studies and the
UCLA School of Law – and is supported
by the Pew Charitable Trusts. The study
is the first comprehensive, comparative study
of candidate campaign finance disclosure laws
and practices in the 50 states; the 2005 assessment
presents findings from a third round of state
evaluations and provides a review of nationwide
and state-by-state changes over the past year.
New
in this year's report are two features appearing
at the end of each state’s
summary: "quick fix" suggests
a simple modification that would improve each
disclosure agency's web site, while "editor's
pick" highlights a feature of each state’s
disclosure program that is particularly innovative
and/or user-friendly. States seeking
to improve their disclosure web sites and programs
can find many best practices in online disclosure
and web site design among the "editor's
picks".
Grading
State Disclosure 2005 evaluated four specific
areas of campaign finance disclosure: state
campaign disclosure laws; electronic
filing programs; accessibility of campaign finance
information; and the usability of state disclosure
web sites. Washington, which ranked 1st
in the nation for the third year in a row,
received the only grade in the A range. Florida
ranked second overall with a B+, followed closely
by California (also with a B+). Other
top states include: Hawaii (B); Georgia and
Illinois (B, tied); Virginia (B); Michigan
and Texas (B-, tied); Rhode Island (B-); and
Ohio (B-). Sixteen states received F
grades.
The
states that have improved the most since
2004 are Virginia, Iowa, Hawaii, Oregon, Maine and New Mexico. Although the findings reveal a
significant amount of progress, less than one
quarter of the states received grades in the
A or B range, indicating that the vast majority
of states still have room to substantially
improve campaign finance disclosure for statewide
and legislative candidates.
Significant findings include:
- 50
states require disclosure of a contributor’s
name and address.
- 28
states require disclosure of a contributor’s
occupation and employer.
- 35 states require timely reporting of last-minute
contributions.
- 40 states require independent
expenditures to be reported.
- 24 states have mandatory electronic filing
for statewide and/or legislative candidates.
- 13 states offer voluntary electronic filing
for statewide and legislative candidates.
- 13 states have no electronic filing program.
- 47
states post campaign finance data on their
disclosure web sites.
- 3
states – Montana, South Carolina
and Wyoming – have no campaign finance
data available on their web sites.
- 32 states provide searchable databases
of contributions online.
- 20 states provide searchable databases
of expenditures online.
- 20 states publish current campaign finance
overviews online.
Significant improvements since 2004 include:
- 1 state added timely reporting of last-minute
independent expenditures.
- 2 states increased the number of pre-election
reports that must be filed by candidates.
- 3 states that previously had voluntary
electronic filing programs converted to mandatory
electronic filing for statewide and/or legislative
candidates.
- 1 state that previously had mandatory electronic
filing for statewide candidates added mandatory
electronic filing for legislative candidates.
- 3 states posted campaign filings to the
Internet more quickly in 2005.
- 3 states added online searchable databases
of campaign contributions.
- 2 states improved their explanations of
which reports can be found on their disclosure
web sites.
Grades
were based on criteria developed by the Project
partners, the Project’s Advisory
Board and a panel of expert judges, who also
assisted with the grading process. The
Project sets a high, but not impossible, standard
for state campaign finance disclosure programs. The
grades were based on a state’s performance
in the area of candidate disclosure only; lobbying,
conflict of interest, ballot measure and party
organization disclosure were not evaluated.
Assessments of each state were based on legal
research, web site visits and research, web
site testing by outside evaluators and responses
from state disclosure agency staff and activists
working on campaign financing at the state
level.
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