. Campaign Disclosure Project to Advance Transparency of Money in State Politics For Immediate Release: Thursday, September 19, 2002 Contact: Joe Doherty, 310-206-2675 The UCLA School of Law, Center for Governmental Studies and California Voter Foundation today announced the launch of The Campaign Disclosure Project, designed to bring greater transparency and accountability to the role of money in state and federal campaigns. The project is funded by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts. "For thirty years the states have experimented with campaign finance disclosure," said Dan Lowenstein, Professor of Law at the UCLA School of Law and the project's principal investigator. "But many states have fallen behind rapid changes in technology, and the role of money is sometimes hidden from the public or less quickly available than it should be." The three groups are working together to improve campaign disclosure by creating model reporting standards, publishing working papers on disclosure related topics, and grading disclosure laws and web sites in the fifty states. "This is an opportunity to study the fifty state-level experiments in campaign disclosure and develop a new national model based upon the successes and failures in those laboratories of democracy," Lowenstein said. The project's 17-member advisory board, made up of national disclosure experts from the governmental, academic, political, nonprofit and media sectors, will convene in San Francisco for their first meeting this week. Key project staff include Bob Stern and Tracy Westen with the Center for Governmental Studies, Kim Alexander with the California Voter Foundation, and Joe Doherty, Project Director, with the UCLA School of Law. More information about the project is available online at www.campaigndisclosure.org. Additional contact information: Bob Stern/Tracy Westen, Center for Governmental Studies: 310-470-6590 Kim Alexander, California Voter Foundation: 530-750-7650 Dan Lowenstein, UCLA School of Law: 310-825-5148 Campaign Disclosure Project Advisory Board members: Jan Baran, Wiley Rein & Fielding, LLP Robert Biersack, Federal Election Commission Prof. Bruce Cain, UC Berkeley Prof. Anthony Corrado, Colby College Jim Drinkard, USA Today Brooks Jackson, CNN Prof. Gary Jacobson, UC San Diego Dr. David Jefferson, election technology and security consultant Donna Lucas, NCG Porter Novelli Colleen McAndrews, Bell, McAndrews, Hiltachk & Davidian Dr. Ron Michaelson, Illinois Board of Elections Larry Noble, Center for Responsive Politics Dr. Norman Ornstein, American Enterprise Institute Trevor Potter, Campaign and Media Legal Center Samantha Sanchez, National Institute on Money in State Politics Rebecca Vigil-Giron, New Mexico Secretary of State Prof. Michael Schudson, UC San Diego -30- Back to the Campaign Disclosure Project home page .