Bill to limit campaign spending passes
If Youngkin OKs it, measure would end personal use of funds
By Kate Seltzer Staff writer
RICHMOND — For the first time, Virginia appears poised to embrace a campaign finance reform that has been proposed in some form every legislative session for more than a decade.
On Tuesday, the state Senate and House unanimously passed each other’s version of the Campaign Integrity Act, which would prohibit using campaign funds for personal use during campaigns.
Last year, the personal use restriction died in committee. The current law provides that candidates must get rid of unused campaign funds at the end of an election cycle through a limited handful of avenues, such as donation or transfer for use in a subsequent campaign. Donations can’t be used for personal reasons after the election, but the law makes no mention of how they can be used throughout the campaign.
“When Virginians contribute to our campaigns, they expect their contributions to advance ideas, policies and services that benefit our communities, yet too often, we’ve seen abuses,” Jennifer Boysko, a Democrat representing Herndon who introduced the Senate version of the bill, said at a news conference Tuesday. “I could take everybody in this room on a Caribbean cruise (using campaign funds) if I wanted to, and that would be perfectly legal.”
Legislators on both sides of the aisle say the current standard carries a loophole that should have been closed long ago, in line with 48 other states and the federal government.
“We’re decried as the Wild Wild West of campaign finance,” said Del. Mike Cherry, R-Colonial Heights. “Maybe this is one step back East.”
The efforts to pass the legislation began in 2014, on the heels of the McDonnell gift-giving scandal, said Del. Marcus Simon, D-Falls Church, who introduced legislation to close the loophole during his freshman year and has been a chief patron or co-patron of similar bills since.
He said legislators initially had concerns they would run afoul of the law if they, for instance, finished a pizza from a campaign event in their home, where it would be converted to personal pizza.
Simon said a joint commission worked to build in safeguards to prevent that sort of thing.
“We spent two years in the off season working out some of those details and coming up with a system that could reassure nervous delegates and senators that we weren’t laying a trap for the unwary,” he said. “This isn’t a personal mission for me. This is about an idea whose time has finally come here in Virginia, which is to clean up our election system and bring some integrity and public trust to what we do.”
Virginia’s campaign finance laws are some of the most lax in the country, with few limits on how much can be donated and how candidates can spend it. The commonwealth has no limits on how much can be donated from individuals, corporations and special interest groups.
The bill now awaits approval from Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
Other campaign finance measures didn’t fare so well this session. A bill that would have directed the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) to study Virginia’s current campaign finance laws and determine how a new independent campaign finance agency would work in the commonwealth was left in the House Rules Committee.
Other legislation that would have set limits on the dollar amount people could donate to any one campaign failed to pass the Senate, as did a bill that would have prohibited political donations from corporations.
A bill that would offer an appeals process for people determined to have committed campaign finance violations passed both chambers and awaits final approval from Youngkin.
Kate Seltzer, 757-713-7881 kate.seltzer @virginiamedia.com