The New Orleans Times-Picayune and WVUE-TV in New Orleans continue
their series on campaign finance matters, now focusing on spending
habits of elected state officials. As opposed to thier efforts
reviewing donations, which was plagued with sketchiness that provided poor
context for understanding the nature and scope of the significance and impact
of donations, especially relative to the First Amendment, this investigation is
much more solid in its analysis. It underscores that the general wording of
statutes regarding how campaign donations may be spent leads to much leeway that
threatens to pervert the intended and essential nature of these offices.
For example, if you spot state
Rep. Steve Pugh
dining out, go by and have a chat with him. By doing so, he can follow his past
practice of ringing up his entire meal from his campaign account, an apparently
legal practice such are the open-endedness of the laws (although don’t do it
too often: at the end of 2012
he was down to less than $5,000 in that account so he might have to cut back
unless he had a good 2013 fundraising year, details on that coming within 10
days).
While some of these officials
appear to minimally make such expenditures, others rack up tens of thousands of
dollars a year on things that under federal
law would be prohibited, defined as “if the contribution or amount is used
to fulfill any commitment, obligation, or expense of a person that would exist
irrespective of the candidate’s election campaign or individual’s duties as a
holder of … office,” which would rule out Pugh’s strategy. Other items listed
in federal law that would be prohibited not already prohibited under state law
are a clothing purchase; a country club membership; a vacation or other non-campaign-related
trip; a tuition payment; admission to a sporting event, concert, theater, or
other form of entertainment not associated with an election campaign; and dues,
fees, and other payments to a health club or recreational facility.
Thus, to change Louisiana law, strictures
like these would have to enter the election code, but also involves defining “campaign-related.”
That could be done easily by signifying any period within nine months of a
qualifying date for an office as a period of campaigning for that office.
Outside of that period, and trips and tickets cannot be reimbursed out of a campaign
fund.
This creation of an eligibility
period might raise hackles with a few politicians for 39 months every four
years, although principally with whoever is governor. Gov. Bobby Jindal has traveled
extensively during his terms in office, and while many of those expenses
have been covered by other sources or as state business, some have come from
his campaign account. But even a very actively-traveling governor like Jindal
would not be too inconvenienced by this tightening of rules. As long as it legitimate
state business was at least part of the trip’s purpose, he could have the state
pay for it (constrained by what funding the legislature gives and by public
opinion), or other sources could offer to pay, so this should not limit much.
And outside of that, the governor
is least affected by these kinds of changes. His budget already includes paying
for many of these kinds of items, he makes a full-time salary for his full-time
job, and others rarely would be relevant as expenditures (except for the occasional law school student).
It’s the part-timers that would be expected to resist these changes.
That means legislators as a
whole, and would include the four of them – House Speaker and Senate President
and their respective pro-tems – that get paid a full-time salary. While some do
want to act as public servants first and foremost, too many of them pursue the
position because they like exercising power most of all. And they chafe at
having to hold down a real job in order to subsidize this power trip as part of
their lives and wish to be rid of this constraint.
There’s good reason constitutionally
and philosophically why a Louisiana state legislator’s job is part-time and
should be paid as such, so for those who feel constricted by serving in a
position they volunteered for, the next best thing to freeing themselves of
non-legislative work requirements and/or the pecuniary demands these can
satisfy is to dip into the campaign account. They will be loath to alter this
arrangement, especially when, outside of a newspaper series and cranky
blog posts, there’s no real evidence that the public has mobilized around
this.
That’s why legislators are
slow-walking completion of a report mandated by SCR
78 from 2013, now already overdue, which was to explore the issue of
appropriate uses of campaign funds. They don’t see an imperative, and rightly
so since the year 2014 means nothing to them in the way in which they can be pressured
the most, electoral terms.
But they will in 2015, because it
is their reelection year. Yet as there seems to be no great public groundswell
on the issue, it will take a policy entrepreneur with the means to publicize
the issue enough to make it a campaign issue to which they must respond, and
that potential legislative newcomers will grasp onto.
Of course, this means Jindal. He
has nothing to lose in that if he ever seeks state elective office again, it
will be no sooner than five years from now that any changes would affect him. And
it’s something he did before, as the very first consequential act of his
governorship in calling a special
session to cover the disclosure and adjudication sides of public servant
behavior. While not optimizing, what came out of this effort was a clear
improvement.
So he should do it again. When
2015 comes, he should tell legislators he’s calling a special session to make
just these changes, putting everybody on the record just in time for campaign season
and leaving the regular session as an opportunity for him to exert some
leverage for the special session, through promises of support or opposition and
vetoes during the regular session if he doesn’t see the special session changes
come into law.
And he should get help from 2015
gubernatorial aspirants. By throwing this out there in such a public manner,
assuredly at least one candidate will see how this can be turned into a winning
issue, and in proselytizing about it pronounces that any failure to pass these
reforms in 2015 would lead to the issue being emphasized as the first order of
business of this new governor in 2016. Chances are, more than one, perhaps even
all, major candidates will jump in on this. The message will be legislators can
do it now, or face perhaps an even more formidable effort (some legislators may
think they can dodge the issue in rationalizing that Jindal is a lame duck and
can only influence them just one more regular session) in the future.
If Jindal leads on this, others
will follow out of political necessity. As he’s likely contemplating a
political career outside of and more exalted than his present post, leading
this charge can’t be a political negative for that purpose, especially when improving
budgetary numbers as seen currently always improve executive-legislative
comity, thereby giving him more leeway to otherwise irritate legislators.
But besides that, he should because
it’s simply the right thing to do. Allowing these kinds of uses tempts part-time
politicians to think of donations as a means not of winning office in order to
serve the people, but as a way to enjoy more comfort in life, and puts
self-preservation in office ahead of making good policy. It places one squarely
on the path to corruption, which simply never should be encouraged. Maybe not
this year, but absolutely next year the time is ripe for this reform and Jindal
must light the fuse.
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