Ventura Councilman Suggests Putting Candidates’ Financial Reports on Internet

Councilman Steve Bennett is pushing a new frontier: He wants to take campaign finance reform into cyberspace.

In an effort to give constituents better access to campaign finance reports, Bennett will ask the Ventura City Council on Monday to consider posting council candidates’ financial disclosure statements on the Internet. That would include all the information presently filed with the city clerk--candidates’ statements of economic interest, as well as lists of campaign contributions that must be legally declared.

Bennett’s request to have city staff look into the possibility of computerized access would be only a first step, but Gary Huckaby of the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) in Sacramento said that the policy, if adopted, could be a first.

“I’m not aware that anyone has done that,” Huckaby said. “But we’ve been advocating it for some time.”

For his part, Bennett sees the Internet postings as a way to facilitate grass-roots democracy by making public information more readily available.

The current system is not user-friendly. Constituents must visit City Hall, request the relevant documents from the city clerk, and either pore over them there, or make copies of dozens of pages to take home. When updated statements are submitted, the process starts again.

“It’s not that anyone tries to make it hard,” Bennett said, “but there are reams of paper, with not much on each sheet. You’ve got to get copies of those reams and reams of papers, or get it all written down. How much better if you could pull it up on the screen at home.”

Councilman Jim Friedman said he supports the idea.

“I think the more information the public has access to, the better,” he said. “This is the way the world is going. I don’t see why we should try to buck the trend.”

But other council members were less than enthusiastic.

“If it’s state law, and the district attorney says so, we should do it,” Councilman Jim Monahan said Friday. “But why pick on the lowest-paid guy in the whole chain of elected officials . . . I’d like to start up there with the state officials and go from the top down.”

Councilwoman Rosa Lee Measures said she did not think the idea merited city staff’s time to investigate it.

“Personally I think we have exaggerated, glorified the value of looking into the depth and details of where funds have come from,” she said. “The D.A. does periodic and on-request audits, the FPPC will engage in any kind of evaluation upon request, and documents are filed at the city clerk’s office. It seems as if we are expounding above and beyond where we need to.”

Monahan said he detected other motives in Bennett’s proposal.

“He’s just grandstanding for the election,” Monahan said. Bennett will be up for reelection this fall, along with Measures and Monahan. Councilman Gary Tuttle’s term also ends, but he has said he will not run again.

Bennett spearheaded a referendum in 1995 that gives Ventura one of the most stringent campaign finance laws in the state. Starting this year, candidates will have to declare all campaign contributions of more than $25, instead of the current $100. The new law also prevents candidates from accepting checks larger than $100 from any contributor, unless the candidate agrees to raise no more than $20,000.

Bennett said he would hope to see the Internet postings in place by 1999.

At the state level, the California secretary of state has been advocating the inclusion of campaign finance information for statewide races on the Internet for some time, Huckaby said, and efforts continue.

“There’s a bill in the Legislature this year to set it up,” Huckaby said. “But there’s speculation it will have tough sledding.”

Those against the idea argue that the data could be the target of mischief by hackers. Huckaby adds that there are additional dangers in placing the information on the Internet, although it is already publicly available.

“There is concern about names and addresses being out there in full array, as opposed to being cloistered in a government building,” he said.

Bennett emphasized that the point of his proposal is to provide better information, not to insinuate that candidates would engage in money laundering.

“It’s not that anyone is doing anything wrong,” he said. “But the more information people can access at home, the better.”