Gifts and Campaign Contributions: A Loophole Story
When is a gift a campaign contribution? This issue has been raised in
the trial of a Manhattan surrogate court judge, according to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/20/nyregion/20anderson.htm" target="”_blank”">an
article in yesterday's New York <i>Times</i></a>.<br>
<br>
The facts appear to be as follows. The head of the judge's law firm
deposited $250,000 into her personal account, intending that it be used
for her campaign (he says that $150,000 of that was intended to be a
loan). The judge then gave this money to her campaign committee, and it
was reported not as a regular campaign contribution, but as a
contribution from the candidate.<br>
<br>
The judge and lawyer are arguing that once the money was placed in the
judge's account, it was hers and, therefore, it was correctly
identified by the campaign committee in its report.<br>
<br>
But this is a technical issue that ignores the fact that the money was
intended as a campaign contribution and loan, and was treated as a
campaign contribution. The judge and lawyer are acting as if, in a
government ethics context, it's okay to play games like this just so
that you can make such technical, but completely disingenuous arguments
when you're caught. Actually, what they did and are doing is more
unethical than simply failing to report a contribution.<br>
<br>
One solution to this problem is for all candidates who give money to
their campaigns to report every aggregate gift during the past two
years over a certain figure. Since one can't limit such gifts, because
they only become relevant when candidates give money, the only thing to
do beyond requiring disclosure would be to require all gifts over a
certain figure to be returned when the candidate makes a sizeable
contribution to his or her campaign. This would be an odd provision,
but if even judges are willing to take advantage of ethics loopholes,
then such loopholes have to be filled.<br>
<br>
Another solution is to have a strict gift ban for judges, so that they
cannot accept a gift from anyone who directly or indirectly (that is,
through their law firm) might appear before them. This would, however,
still allow, say, their family members to put large sums into a
campaign without reporting them, but people wouldn't care as much about
this. This would be seen as supporting family, rather than possibly
buying a candidate via a clever scheme.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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