Internet filing of campaign reports stalls

Sponsor says ‘transparency’ bill is unlikely to be revived

LITTLE ROCK -- A proposed law that would have made it easier for Arkansans to see who's giving campaign money to the state's highest elected officials appears stalled as the General Assembly winds down this week.

Rogers Republican Rep. Jana Della Rosa, the main sponsor, said Monday that she is unlikely to continue pushing the issue this year, after a vote in the House late last week failed to advance the measure.

House Speaker Jeremy Gillam, a co-sponsor with Della Rosa, said that even if the bill had passed in the House, "there was no guarantee it was going to work through the Senate" before adjournment.

Della Rosa had lined up 30 co-sponsors for House Bill 1233. It would have moved Arkansas into the ranks of about 40 other states that require candidates to submit campaign finance reports by computer. And the new law wouldn't have required any new state spending.

But the bill would, as Della Rosa said on the House floor last week, demand legislators "change their own behavior."

Instead of turning in handwritten or typed campaign donation and expenditure reports, candidates for statewide and district offices would enter the numbers into electronic databases that are relatively easy for the public to search and analyze.

"We're making laws at the rate of about 50 a day," Della Rosa told the House. "We tell people 'you should do this, you should do that.'"

Now it's time for legislators to require changes of themselves, she said.

But House lawmakers said now was not that time. They voted 48-33 for the bill Thursday, but because the legislation requires revisions to Arkansas Ethics Commission rules, it needed two-thirds approval, or 67 votes.

Della Rosa said Monday that she hasn't heard much since the vote, except this question: "What happened?"

During floor debate, Rep. Dave Wallace, R-Leachville, said he and some of his colleagues were "too dimwitted" to file reports by computer or too committed to the local paper industry to support a bill that would reduce paper filings.

"I may not be smart enough to do this online," Wallace said in speaking against the bill.

Others blamed poor Internet access in rural areas.

Della Rosa weighed those issues against public good.

"This bill is all about transparency," Della Rosa said. "Forty states in America require online filing [of campaign finance reports]. We are not in any way pioneering this. We are not ahead of the game here. We are trailing behind."

The bill drew relatively less support from Della Rosa's own party than from Democrats.

About 40 percent of House Republicans voted for the bill, according to a legislative tally; about 60 percent of Democrats voted yes.

House Majority Leader Ken Bragg, R-Sheridan, said he was surprised that the bill failed.

"We do have quite a few members from rural areas who have issues with Internet connections," Bragg said. "I think that was a legitimate concern, even though there was provision in the bill for that." (The legislation allowed candidates to sign a statement saying electronic filing was a hardship and to continue to file paper copies.)

Internet access is usually a function of how rural a state or community is, according to Pete Quist, executive director of the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

"Alaska and Wyoming are a couple of examples of states that are more rural than Arkansas and that have candidate electronic reporting requirements," Quist wrote in a Monday email. His nonprofit group, based in Helena, Mont., tracks campaign finance reporting in all 50 states.

For the public, Quist said, "Paper reports make it impossible to answer fundamental questions about money in politics, such as: 'Who has received contributions from this person or interest group?' without the public having to look at every page of every report and building a database themselves.

"That is not transparent," Quist said. "Shining the light on contributions to campaigns helps install public trust in governance."

Leslie Lane, a senior vice president with the Little Rock nonprofit Arkansas Capital Corporation Group, said Monday that there definitely are "pockets" of Arkansas without good Internet access. But his group, which spearheads a "Connect Arkansas" project, often sees a bigger issue: "People who do have access but don't have the equipment or the expertise to use it."

Lane has read accounts from more than a century ago as electricity was introduced across the nation. And they remind him of today's issues surrounding computer technology and the Internet.

"Some people had never had a recurring bill like a utility payment," Lane said. "Some didn't have wiring, so there were lots of costs to get the house wired up." People also had to be educated about how to use electricity, he said.

But when farmers "began to think about a light bulb in the barn, and women began to realize they wouldn't have to wash clothes or dishes by hand," electrical use took off, he said.

Today, "when you go to get Internet service, there's a lot to learn," Lane said. "I can see where a lot of people get confused. It's an education process."

Gillam, R-Judsonia, sees hope for the future on required electronic filing of campaign finance reports.

"I think we'll still get there. It just didn't happen this time," he said.

NW News on 03/31/2015

Upcoming Events