[EL] Check out Study shows who breaks campaign laws- ThePuebloChieftai...

[Larry Levine]

Transaction costs are just a very small part of the matter. It is the rules
about what needs to be reported and upon what schedule that creates the
traps. These rules often differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and change
from election cycle to election cycle within the same jurisdiction. If the
government is going to require automated (electronic) filing of
contributions and expenditures, then the government should either provide
the software and hardware needed to comply free of charge, or allow those
costs to fall beyond the limits of spending on a campaign. 
The difficulty with so much of what we enact in the way of reporting reforms
is that they may apply well to big statewide races or even to legislative
races. But when you come down to a city council campaign in a town of just a
few thousand people, or in a very small school district those requirements
become burdensome.
Larry

-----Original Message-----
From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
[mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Kathay
Feng
Sent: Sunday, August 14, 2011 11:58 AM
To: Volokh, Eugene; law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu;
law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
Subject: Re: [EL] Check out Study shows who breaks campaign laws-
ThePuebloChieftai...

Automation is certainly a practical solution that would help. In California,
we had a bi- and non-partisan group of reformers, the regulated community,
citizen groups and others that all agreed that greater automation would help
with disclosure, and significantly lower transaction costs for both
campaigns and the government.  The idea is still stuck in the mud, though.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

-----Original Message-----
From: "Volokh, Eugene" <VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu>
Sender: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu
Date: Sun, 14 Aug 2011 10:41:53
To:
law-election at department-lists.uci.edu<law-election at department-lists.uci.edu>
Subject: Re: [EL] Check out Study shows who breaks campaign laws
	-	ThePuebloChieftai...

	A naïve question:  Could some of these problems -- at least to
filing -- be relieved with automation (and might they already be so
relieved), especially with automation that the jurisdiction is willing to
certify as sufficient?  For instance, I certainly sympathize with concerns
about the burden of reporting contributions and expenditures, but what if
State X, when it enacts some such disclosure restrictions, provides that the
obligation is discharged if a campaign worker goes to a particular Web site
and accurately enters all the data he's asked to enter?  Likewise, I take it
that whatever software is used to gather credit card donations via the Web
presumably already creates a data file that can just be sent to the election
authorities to discharge the disclosure obligations.  Or am I missing
something big here?

	Eugene

> On Sun, Aug 14, 2011 at 1:05 PM, Larry Levine <larrylevine at earthlink.net>
wrote:
> > You've touched a nerve. We have "reformed" our way into a time when 
> > one cannot run an election campaign of any size, or a PAC, or 
> > conduct activities of a state or local political party or club 
> > without the cost of a professional treasurer and an attorney on 
> > retainer. At the same time we are placing limits on the amounts of 
> > contributions and the permissible expenditures in campaign without 
> > allowing for these "overhead" items to come from a separate account. 
> > Gone is the day when a volunteer can be the treasurer of a campaign 
> > for a friend if the campaign is of any consequential size. On top of 
> > that, we have created a thicket of regulations and requirements that 
> > differ from state to state and from jurisdiction to jurisdiction 
> > within a state, thus making it virtually impossible for a campaign 
> > and/or a candidate to avoid violations without the services of an 
> > elections attorney who is watching over every facet of the campaign. 
> > And all in aide of stamping out the perception of corruption. Tell 
> > me, is the perception any less now than when we started the "reforms"
some 40 years ago?
> >
> > Larry
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