Disclosure
News & Commentary | Archive

BCRA augments existing disclosure requirements and adds new ones. Candidates must personally approve their advertising, making statements of this approval in prescribed form in their radio and television spots. Other reporting requirements are established by way of implementation of the Millionaire's Amendment, so that the FEC, candidates and parties affected by the provision may determine the eligibility of relief provided under this provision. National party committees and candidates are subject to new reporting schedules, and some financial activity previously untouched by the law, such as donations to Inaugural committees, are not subject to disclosure.

The New Argument Over Disclosure

     An unsigned piece at the Center of Competitive Politics site questions compelled disclosure of political spending.  It concedes some case for disclosure of contributions to candidates.  It is wholly unimpressed with forced reporting to the government of independent activity. 

     Two reasons are given for wariness about compelled disclosure:  the danger of reprisal against those whose political affiliations are made known to all, on the public record, and the distortion of debate when attention is turned to the authorship of positions rather than their merits. 

 

Studying Disclosure, And Its Uses

   States enact different disclosure regimes, some better than others, and Professor Ray La Raja of the University of Massachusetts has posted the interesting question of whether and how more comprehensive, accessible disclosure influences the quantity and quality of newspaper coverage of campaign finance.  In an article appearing in the latest issue of the Election Law Journal, 6 Election L. J. 236 (2007), LaRaja reports his findings, having studied three years of state campaign finance coverage in the 50 states.  Better disclosure does not result in more , or more timely, reporting on campaign finance.  Somewhat against LaRaja’s expectation, scandal reporting does not rise with the quality of the disclosure regimes,  and “horse race” stories are less prevalent where mandated disclosure is robust.

Disclosure for Thee and Not for Me: and the Warnings (Not) of Mr. Ugarte

     Journalists and "watchdog groups" must help each other in the cause of reform by staking out a position safely outside the theatre of political combat.  They are observers, critics, outsiders, sufficiently untouched by political passion or self-interest that they can bid for the trust of the wider public looking for safe passage through the Great Political Bazaar.  Like the unnamed pickpocket in Casablanca (not, as originally stated here, Mr. Ugarte), their message is:  "This place is full of vultures, vultures everywhere!"  They can sense the approach of vultures because they do not fly among them.  They are a different and rarer breed of bird:  nonpartisan, nonpolitical, keenly tuned to the most public of interests.

 

Celebrating McCain-Feingold’s Birthday: “Speech! Speech!”

    On McCain Feingold’s birthday, commentators marked it in various days.  Rick Hasen noted the contributions of "conservative" critics, but one of these, Jonah Goldberg, allies himself with a prominent progressive critic, Mark Schmitt, whose disillusionment with the law has received wide attention.  On both left and right, there are doubts. 

 

"1984"

    So what is behind this now concluded investigation into the "mystery" of the "1984" video?  It is not quite a scandal, but is it perhaps more than a good “story”?  A flap? A kerfuffle? A “controversy?”  And if any of these, then what is it about? 

     It appears for some to be the occasion for fretting about the danger posed by the Internet to the imperative of “disclosure”.  A story on point appeared in the LA Times, , and the reporter drew from Carol Darr, a specialist, the surprising remark that disclosure protects us against the risk of foreign interest influence over our elections. Over the course of the day, the election law listserv also carried a vigorous exchange about accountability for online speech. 

Also...

Thinking about the “Bundling” Disclosure  2/9/07

The Never Ending Disclosure War  12/20/06

The Anonymous Donor  8/7/06

McCain and the Blogger on His Payroll  7/27/06

Accepted Verities and Heresy in Political Reform  6/7/06

The Uses of Secrecy and Disclosure in Political Reform  5/1/06

The Uses of Disclosure in Lobbying Reform  1/5/06

Summary of FEC Meeting  5/5/05

Regulation of Bloggers and the Principle of Parallelism  5/5/05

At the Altar of "Disclosure"  4/18/05