A measure that would provide Mississippi voters a searchable database of campaign contributions to politicians — like most other states have — drew criticism from a panel of lawmakers Tuesday, and its future passage looks dicey.
“There are people who are not sophisticated running for public office, and you shouldn’t have to be sophisticated to run for public office,” said Sen. Hob Bryan, D-Amory, who said Mississippi candidates shouldn’t be required to use a computer to file campaign finance reports.
“That’s not helping transparency,” Bryan said. “That’s laying booby traps for someone running for the first time.”
Senate Bill 2650, authored by Senate Elections Chairman Jeremy England, R-Vancleave, is supported by Secretary of State Michael Watson, who has said his office is already in the process of purchasing a new computer system that would make searchable campaign donations possible.
Most other states, including all those surrounding Mississippi, have searchable databases of campaign contributions, as there also are for federal candidates. For instance, a voter could type in a donor’s name and see to whom and how much that donor has given. While Mississippi’s SOS office has online campaign finance records, they are non-searchable PDFs — essentially pictures of pages — and candidates are still allowed to file paper, handwritten campaign finance reports.
England’s bill would have also required city and county politicians’ finance reports be online, submitted to the secretary of state electronically by local clerks. Sen. David Blount, D-Jackson, said while he doesn’t oppose state-level candidates filing online, it would be too burdensome for the local level. He offered an amendment to exclude city and county candidates, but that amendment was tabled.
Instead, England offered a successful amendment to put a “reverse repealer” in the bill, to allow it to live beyond Tuesday’s deadline but be subject to more revision and debate. A similar measure died last year after a similar reception in committee.
Some lawmakers in the committee said that issues with the secretary of state’s current website — glitches, being down — without such searchable data make them leery of more stringent reporting requirements.
Sen. David Parker, R-Southaven, said advancements in artificial intelligence might soon make the current PDF filings more searchable, and not require a new system or regulations.
England’s bill would have allowed candidates without internet access to file an affidavit to that effect and still file a paper report.
“What if you do have internet access, but you don’t know how to do all of this?” Bryan said.
Mississippi has weak and jumbled campaign finance and ethics laws and little transparency for voters or enforcement for wrongdoers. The laws the state does have on campaign finance have been piecemealed and cobbled together over many years and have created a confusing, conflicting mess. Some code sections contradict each other, and no one official or agency appears to be in charge of monitoring account filings or enforcement. The head of the state’s ethics agency has described Mississippi campaign finance laws as a “jigsaw puzzle that doesn’t fit.”
In recent election cycles, the state has seen millions of dollars of dark money flow into campaigns and PACs and what would appear to be flagrant violations of what few laws and limits there are have gone unchecked.
But state lawmakers have generally been loath to pass major campaign finance reform.
The Senate Elections Committee took action on several other bills on Tuesday, the deadline for their passage out of committee. The following bills passed on to the full Senate:
SB 2608, which clarifies that all corporate donations to political campaigns are limited to $1,000 per calendar year. In practice, this limit has existed for decades, but Attorney General Lynn Fitch recently said she believes the law is unclear, and that it does not apply to out of state corporations.
SB 2651, which attempts to clarify the roles of the secretary of state and attorney general in campaign finance regulation and enforcement. A reverse repealer was also added to this bill to ensure further changes or debate.
SB 2649, which “expounds” on the prohibition of campaign contributions from foreign nationals. State law already prohibits such contributions to individual candidates, but the prohibition in the bill would extend to constitutional amendments, local ballot measures, ballot referendums “or similar measures.”
-- Article credit to Geoff Pender of Mississippi Today --
