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When Campaign Finance Oversight Sucks Up an Ethics Program's Resources

<a href="http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2013/11/louisiana_should_make_vi…; target="”_blank”">An

editorial in yesterday's New Orleans <i>Times-Picayune</i></a> points out
a problem that is common to many ethics programs that have
jurisdiction over both conflicts of interest and campaign
finance:  campaign finance sucks up the program's resources,
leaving too few resources for other things, including the
collection of the fines they impose.<br>
<br>
The editorial begins, "Louisiana's Ethics Board staff spends an
inordinate amount of time processing campaign finance and disclosure
filings and documenting reports that come in late or not at all.
Meanwhile, candidates who accept improper contributions or violate
other campaign rules often face no consequences because no one gets
around to checking up on them."<br>
<br>

The problem is that processing campaign reports, especially if
they're not filed electronically, eats up staff time. Determining
whether the reports are accurate or whether there is evidence of legal
violations takes even more time. So it often isn't done. For
example, the ethics board administrator said she didn't recall a
single investigation involving limits on contributions from PACs
since she joined the ethics program in 1997.<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/11/nine_louisiana_officials…; target="”_blank”">The

newspaper did its own investigation</a>, and found that nine
officials had received $370,000 in excess PAC contributions since
2006.<br>
<br>
The editorial concludes correctly that this "lax enforcement
undermines the Ethics Board's effectiveness and the public's
confidence in the system." It then goes on to share speculation by
<a href="http://www.parlouisiana.org/&quot; target="”_blank”">Public Affairs Research Council</a> President Robert Scott that
lawmakers might have done this by design, since they are under the
ethics board's jurisdiction and have something to gain from lax
enforcement.<br>
<br>
Scott is quoted as saying, "Is this system created just to bog down
the Ethics Board in minutiae so they can't take on any of the really
big issues, they can't take on some of the real infractions?" This
is a fair question to ask. If it wasn't intended from the start, it
might have later been seen as something worth preserving. That is,
it might have been considered a problem not worth trying to find a
solution to.<br>
<br>
The state treasurer, however, has proposed a partial
solution: to have the state's new Office of Debt Recovery take over
the collection of ethics fines. Revenue Secretary Tim Barfield and
officials with the attorney general's office support this proposal.
According to the editorial, the bulk of the money, minus a portion the law requires to go to the
state police, would go to the ethics board to give it
more resources for enforcement. This sounds like a good solution, as
long as the Office of Debt Recovery doesn't make collection of
ethics fines a low priority and is independent enough not to be
influenced by politics.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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