[EL] CA campaign filing disparate reporting systems

[Douglas Johnson]

The problem’s even larger than indicated in that article, as many (all?) of California’s nearly 500 cities maintain the campaign records of city candidates, rather than passing them to the counties, and only a small handful post even the scanned image-based PDF files online.

 

This issue has mystified me for years, since the solution is so easy: in California, the state determines every detail of how local candidates report revenues and expenditures (and loans, and so on). But the state has never said simply “file this online,” rather than “file this exact paper form with your local election authority.” Having typed thousands of these records into Excel over the years, I personally know how straightforward this would be to move online.

 

I will grant that given the problems with the state’s statewide and legislative campaign finance tracking system I understand why no attention has been paid to this, but it sure seems like an easy “win” for disclosure and transparency.

 

And I believe Pete Peterson talked about doing this during his campaign for Secretary of State, but otherwise it seems ignored. 

 

The Secretary of State and/or Fair Political Practices Commission making this change would result is a significant cost reduction for the local election offices, while also making it possible to search the statewide local government donations of the major players in the state such as cable television systems and waste haulers (something that is logistically impossible under the current FPPC-driven paper forms system).

 

-          Doug

 

Douglas Johnson, Ph.D.

Fellow, Rose Institute of State and Local Government at Claremont McKenna College

310-200-2058

douglas.johnson at cmc.edu

 


 


 <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=83257> “In California, varied election filing practices reveal a system struggling to catch up”


Posted on  <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=83257> May 31, 2016 7:25 am by  <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3> Rick Hasen

 <http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-campaign-finance-records-stanford-university-20160530-snap-story.html> LAT:

More than half of California’s counties — most of them small and rural — don’t provide online access to campaign finance records, and they say they aren’t likely to change any time soon, an assessment of county-level contribution records shows.

Only 28 of the state’s 58 counties provide campaign finance information online. And of those, just 17 make the data available in formats that make it easy to search and analyze the money influencing local elections.

 
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