PIRG: Mortgaged House: Require Full, Accessible Disclosure

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Mortgaged House

2. Require Full, Accessible Disclosure

On the cusp of the 21st Century, members of the Texas Legislature are still manually filing contribution and expenditure reports that are often sloppy, inaccurate and incomplete. Reports of itemized contributions and expenditures often do not match the self-reported totals on the same reports. A loophole that permits unitemized reporting of contributions under $50 appears to be abused by some members as a way to report money with no questions asked.

Current reporting requirements flout the public’s right to full, complete and timely access to campaign finance information. To address this problem, the Legislature should enact the following reforms and apply them to all candidates, PACs and political parties that currently must report to the Texas Ethics Commission:

Electronic Filing

Require contribution and expenditure reports to be filed in an electronic database format developed and administered by the Texas Ethics Commission.
This database should automatically generate contribution and expenditure totals from the filer’s itemized entries.
These reports should be made available quickly in a database format that is accessible on the World Wide Web.
Full Disclosure

All contributions should be itemized and complete, regardless of size; filers should not accept contributions that they are unable or unwilling to fully disclose.
Disclosure should include mandatory information on the amount and date of the contribution, as well as the contributor’s full name, address, occupation and employer.
Registered PACs and lobbyists should be required to identify themselves as such and to disclose any business they have before the state.
The loophole in Section 251 of the Texas Election Code that exempts almost all out-of- state PACs from filing the contribution and expenditure reports that Texas PACs must file should be eliminated;
Filers should be required to report cash on hand at the time of each filing;
Expenditures by PACs and political parties on behalf of slate candidates should be reported in an apportioned form on the contribution reports of benefiting candidates; and
The Ethics Commission should be empowered to monitor the accuracy of reports and to assess substantial civil penalties on candidates and committees that fail to comply with reporting requirements.

A 1996 Center for Responsive Politics report contains a useful discussion of model disclosure policies implemented by Colorado, Washington, Illinois and Michigan.¹⁴

¹⁴ “Plugging in the Public: A Model for Campaign Finance Disclosure,” by Elizabeth Hedlund and Lisa Rosenberg, Center for Responsive Politics, Washington, D.C.