Disclosure & Transparency

Georgia’s elections are all over the headlines this past week after the Trump indictment, but there is one issue key to protecting our votes missing from those headlines: transparency in campaign spending. In Georgia, we believe all voters have a right to know when wealthy special interests are spending big to influence our vote. Unfortunately, the Federal Election Commission, the agency tasked with enforcing federal campaign finance laws, has failed Georgia voters and left us in the dark about an out-of-state group that illegally spent untold sums to try and stop some of us from voting in the 2021 U.S. Senate runoff elections.

“If it wasn’t for Charley and the people he brought from Common Cause, the Ethics Commission would not have had the courage to put Proposition O on the ballot,” said Paul Melbostad, who served eight years on the Ethics Commission. Prop. O passed by a wide margin setting a $500 ceiling on donations, a limit that remains to this day. “Charley had credibility because he never sought personal gain and avoided endorsing candidates and ballot measures other than on (matters of) ethics,” Melbostad said.

“This is an area where a lot of money is involved. The state is offering big incentives involving our tax dollars to corporations, and Hoosiers deserve to know the backstory,” said Julia Vaughn, who leads government watchdog Common Cause Indiana. “But I think the IEDC and its foundation: their structure often stops that from happening.” Vaughn said her organization expressed transparency-related concerns when the state swapped its commerce department for the corporation-foundation combination. “I’m afraid our worst fears have come true,” she concluded. “… It’s simply another way for these corporate interests to flex their muscle, and in a way that happens completely in the dark.”

The Civil Beat Editorial Board spoke on Tuesday with the program director of Common Cause Hawaii. Camron Hurt said the organization under his leadership will focus on elections, voting access, government transparency and campaign finance reform. Hurt began by explaining what Common Cause does.

However, Stephen Spaulding, vice president for policy at the group Common Cause, said this would put even more pressure on the health of democracy in current political environment. "This opens up a significant risk to the perception that the winners and losers of an election are not determined by voters, but by those who stand to gain financially," he said. Common Cause has sent a filing to the commission, asking that it reject the proposal. Leadership with the House Task Force on Strengthening Democracy issued a similar request. Rep. Marc Pocan, D-Wis., is on the task force but declined comment.

No American is above the law, not even the President. But we learned during the Trump administration that existing laws are not sufficient to prevent abuses of the Office of the President. We need strong guardrails in the form of laws. We need the Protecting Our Democracy Act to provide greater checks and balances to the powers of the presidency while creating new mechanisms for transparency and accountability.