Lifting the Donor’s Mask

A 1974 state law requires political committees to report late infusions of big money into the campaign of a candidate or ballot issue. These eleventh-hour contributions are suspect because they often pay for attack ads or mailed hit pieces that leave the target little or no chance to respond before the voting starts. This beneficial campaign finance law, however, contains a loophole that allows the committees to hide the real source of the money until the election is over, and Sen. Byron Sher (D-Stanford) is sponsoring a bill to plug it.

The Legislature should approve Sher’s measure, SB 762, now in the Assembly, and send it to Gov. Gray Davis for his signature.

During the final two weeks of a campaign, independent political committees have 24 hours to publicly report any contributions or independent expenditures they make. Such a report might disclose, for example, that Candidate Jones received a late contribution of $10,000 from something called the Committee for Better Government. In fact, the money may have originated from a wealthy individual or special-interest group that channeled it through an innocuous-sounding committee.

Sher’s bill would require all committees to report where they got the money as well as where it went. The measure covers all receipts of $100 or more and requires the disclosure within 24 hours of receipt. This would not eliminate all the evils of huge last-minute donations, but at least voters could learn who’s hiding behind those committees pretending to be for good government.