Even as Louisiana legislators reduced the impact of the inherent flaw of limits to campaign contributions this year, more work is needed on the expenditure side that reduces the uncertainty involved induced by the unelected state Board of Ethics.
Over the past year, elected officials have complained they have less certainty about what are allowable expenditures from political action committees in particular. This is because the legal standard is extremely open-ended on the campaign side, and on the PAC side there hasn’t been definition at all with the assumption that it matched that of the campaign side. PACs are allowed to spend on behalf of a candidate but must do so independently of a principal campaign committee for that candidate.
This summer, the Board, which oversees campaign disclosure, initiated a rules process that would limit PAC expenditures to exclude “expenditures for the purpose of supporting an elected official’s holding of public office or party position” or “expenditures for the benefit of a candidate that would be a personal use if made from a candidate’s campaign funds,” both of which can be done from a campaign account. However, the rule has yet to be made final with legislative leaders indicating they would exercise their veto power over it if made final.