Tag Archives: campaign disclosure

Corporate America Planning to Spend Record Amount in Congressional Elections

Posted on August 4th, 2010 | Comments Off on Corporate America Planning to Spend Record Amount in Congressional Elections

Republicans last week did the dirty work for the US Chamber of Commerce – their buddies. The Chamber lobbied hard against tougher campaign finance disclosure laws in Congress. Republicans in the Senate voted unanimously to block the legislation from being voted on. Republicans don’t want the public knowing who is going to be spending tons of money in their behalf to try to bring back the conservative’s failed free market economics with its lack of regulation and accountability that contributed heavily to our present lingering Recession.

As reported in the LA Times,

“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the biggest collection point for corporate contributions, has increased its spending for the congressional election in November from $35 million in 2008 to a projected $75 million this year. Officials say it may go even higher.

The chamber has been joined by new conservative fundraising organizations — such as American Crossroads, affiliated with Republican strategist Karl Rove — that have committed to raising tens of millions of dollars.

One report circulating among Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill last week estimated that more than $300 million has been budgeted for the campaign by a group of 15 conservative tax-exempt organizations.

“A commitment of $300 million from just 15 organizations is a huge amount, putting them in record territory for groups on the right or left,” said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign contributions. “With control of Congress hanging in the balance, this kind of spending could have a major impact.”

The US Chamber of Commerce loves all this hype and obviously isn’t denying their attempt to influence the elections through this profligate paid speech.  They even posted the article on their website.

Decisions by the conservative majority of the US Supreme Court have opened the floodgates of paid media. Forget free speech – do you think  “free speech” can compete with “paid speech” of this magnitude? One has to hope that their lavish spending turns the public off and those concerned about corporate America’s blatant attempt to buy a Congress to do their dirty work out and vote.

Democrats and independents concerned about this country being run by corporate America need to reject the failed policies of the Republicans. This is a crucial election for the future of our country. Get out and vote.

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Latest Fundraising Totals in Seattle Races

Posted on November 3rd, 2009 | Comments Off on Latest Fundraising Totals in Seattle Races

Campaign Disclosure Information can be found at the Washington State Public Disclosure website , as well as at the City of Seattle Ethics and Election Commission website.  You can get more detailed on these races, including who gave them money, how much and how the campaign spent it. This information is what was reported as of Nov 2, 2009.

Seattle City Mayor – no incumbent
Joe Mallahan ……raised $711,205 …..spent $655,524

Michael McGinn …..raised $204,912 …..spent $166,774

City Council Position 2 – Incumbent is Richard Conlin

Richard Conlin …. raised $175,980…. spent $134,283

David Ginsberg…. raised $41,177…. spent $42,044

City Council Position 4 – no incumbent

Sally Bagshaw …. raised $224,134…. spent $172,104

David Bloom …. raised $93,907  …. spent $85,411

City Council Position 6 – Incumbent is Nick Licata

Jessie Israel …. raised $184,213…. spent $170,664

Nick Licata…. raised $138,021…. spent $128,843

City Council Position 8 – no incumbent

Mike O’Brien …. raised  $129,103 ….spent  $99,886

Robert Rosencrantz ….raised $222,022…. spent $208,794

Seattle City Attorney – Incumbent is Tom Carr

Thomas Carr …..raised $92,006 …..spent $77,440

Peter Holmes …..raised $85,521 ……spent $78,949

Seattle School District #4 – Michael DeBell is incumbent

Michael DeBell …..raised $5,505 …..spent $3,491

Seattle School District #5 – Incumbent is Mary Bass

Kay Smith-Blum …..raised $54,910 …..spent $48,904

Mary Bass …..raised $35,006 …..$34,377

Seattle School District #7 – no incumbent

Betty Patu ……raised $11,291 ….spent $8,275

Wilson Chim …..raised $53,513 …..spent $40,866

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Seattle School Board Candidates Mostly Low Profile and Low Fundraising.

Posted on August 6th, 2009 | 1 comment

Three Seattle School Board seats are up for election this year and two seats have Primary Elections. The School District has an odd hybrid electoral system where candidates run in a district in the Primary and city wide in the General Election.

Seattle School Board President Michael DeBell is running unopposed and will not be on the Primary ballot. In the second seat up, incumbent Mary Bass is opposed by 3 other candidates, Joanna Cullen, Andre Helmsletter and Kay Blum-Smith. The third seat is that being vacated by Cheryl Chow and has three candidates running. Wilson Chin, Charlie Mas and Betty Patu.

Despite the fact that the Seattle School District is in Seattle and of obvious interest to Seattle residents, campaign finance information for the candidates is not posted on the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission website. This is something that the city should include, especially considering how often candidates running for Seattle City Council or Mayor seem to mention the issues of our schools.

Also conspicuously absent is the fact that there are no campaign contribution limits for those running for Seattle School Board. While candidates for city office are limited to accepting a maximum of $700 per person per election cycle, no such limits exist for Seattle School Board. Two years ago this allowed some large contributions by a few individuals to influence the outcome of the races to a significant degree.

The following information is taken from the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission’s website.

One candidate this year for School Board, Wilson Chin, has received 4 contributions over the limit for other city offices. Two were for $2500 and two were for $1500. All told Chin has raised only $9,938 but it is the most in his race for Position #7 in South Seattle. Betty Patu has raised $1,035 and Charlie Mas has reported no contributions to date.

In Position 5, Mary Bass the incumbent, has raised some $6,142 , including a loan of $3,000. One contribution from Nadean Bass was for $1,000. Kay Smith-Blum has raised $26,165 and spent $19,710 to date. Her fundraising includes some $10,720 from 86 contributors; a $7,200 loan and $7,000 of her personal funds. Her largest individual contribution was for $400. The other two candidates, Joanna Cullen and Andre Helmsletter reported no campaign contributions.

Two years ago the races for Seattle School District saw huge amounts of money spent, much of it coming after the primary and in contributions much larger than the $700 limit for Seattle City Council and Mayoral races. The money was a coordinated effort to put more “congenial” people on the Board who didn’t ask as many questions. It worked if that was what you wanted.

Sherry Carr raised $149,130 with 31 contributions over $700 totaling some $105,700.

Peter Maier raised some $167,000 with 30 contributions over $700 totaling some $101,500.

Stephen Sundquist raised some $116,775 with 35 contributions over $700 totaling some $61,000.

The goal of this extraordinary amount of money was to defeat candidates like Darlene Flynn and Sally Soriano who disturbed the powers to be by asking too many questions and not taking the word of school administrators all the time.

Those who replaced them brought different results. You got people, for example, who did not question an administrative decision still ongoing to build in a rare plant habitat at Ingraham High School. They also were the votes that picked the fuzzy math approach for new textbooks. As the Seattle Times wrote about the math textbook vote:

“The other side, however, did not make a case for the reform text.

They argued instead that the “Discovering” books had been recommended by a committee, and that the board should respect the committee. Board member Steve Sundquist said, “I should probably not be telling educators how to teach.”

They argued that textbooks aren’t that important anyway. Board member Peter Maier said the books “allow a variety of teaching methods.”

They argued that textbook adoption was too important to waste any more time. “How many classes are we willing to graduate while we disagree over textbooks?” said board member Sherry Carr.

So the dominant paradigm — and reform math is that — continues. Dominance has its privileges. The supporters of reform math did not have to define their terms or label themselves. They did not have to make a logical argument or show any data.

They engaged in what you might call a cooperative group activity, and led themselves to discover the books that were wanted.”

So far contributions this year seem much more subdued but we could see a repeat. It would be unfortunate if once again large contributions influenced the races and produced more yes votes toeing the line of the Seattle School Administration without asking the tough questions.

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Only Four Seattle City Council Candidates Raise over $10,000 in June

Posted on July 12th, 2009 | Comments Off on Only Four Seattle City Council Candidates Raise over $10,000 in June

Candidates running for Seattle City Council have only about 1 month left before the August 18, 2009 Primary. The two top candidates in each race will go on to the November election. Here are the latest monthly fundraising totals as of June 30, 2009.

Sally Bagshaw has raised the most money so far at $122,940. Richard Conlin has raised the second largest amount at $115,003.

Four Seattle City Council candidates raised over $10,000 in June.

Martin Henry Kaplan …..$42,035
Sally Bagshaw …..$18,750
Jordan Royer …..$14,924
Robert Rosencranz …..$12,134

The information below first lists how much total money the Seattle City Council candidates reported raising through June 30, 2009 and how much of that they have spent. The third figure is how much they raised during the month of June, an indication of campaign momentum.

name …amount raised …amount spent …amount raised in June

City Council Position 2 – Incumbent is Richard Conlin

Richard Conlin …. $115,003…. $39,066 ……+9096
David Ginsberg…. $28,194…. $26,065 …..+1991

City Council Position 4 – Incumbent is Jan Drago (retiring)

Sally Bagshaw …. $122,940…. $44,106 …..+18,750

David Bloom …. $50,535…. $13,417 …..+6,676

Dorsol Plants …. $3,365…. $1782 …..+335

City Council Position 6 – Incumbent is Nick Licata

Jessie Israel …. $49,940…. $12,030 …..+8,804

Martin Henry Kaplan …. $61,3681…. $5,500 …..+41,035

Nick Licata…. $82,547…. $35,368 ….+7,437

City Council Position 8 – Incumbent is Richard McIver (retiring)

Bobby Forch ….$28,960….$0 …..+4445

David Miller …. $49,930…. $18,666 …..+5309

Mike O’Brien …. $60,633…. $15,580…..+3,354

Robert Rosencrantz …. $93,411…. $42,863 …..+12,134

Jordan Royer …. $81,347…. $29,988…..+14,924

Rusty Williams …. $44,701…. $15,164…..+2760

Information was obtained from the following websites: Washington State Public Disclosure Commission and City of Seattle Ethics and Election Commission . You can check out more information including who has donated to which campaigns by going to these sites.

The Primary Election is August 18, 2009.

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Should Money Buy "Free" Speech in Elections?

Posted on June 30th, 2009 | Comments Off on Should Money Buy "Free" Speech in Elections?

U.S. Supreme Court maneuvering in a case involving corporate money in political campaigns suggests that the right wing majority on the court is practicing judicial activism. The case involves a corporate documentary last year that was critical of Hilliary Clinton. According to an article today in the New York Times entitled “High Court Poised to Rewrite Spending Rules” the US Supreme Court appears to be setting up to overturn major provisions of the McCain Feingold law that it upheld just 2 years ago.

What has changed in those 2 years is that two more conservative justices have been appointed to the Court – Justices Roberts and Alito. As the New York Times notes “The Roberts court has struck down every campaign finance regulation to reach it, and it seems to have a majority prepared to do more. “

The issue involves “corporate money” in campaigns. The conservatives say that limiting the spending of corporate money is equal to limiting free speech. They argue limiting corporate money in elections violates the first amendment.

Of course there are several assumptions here that are questionable. One is that corporations should be accorded the same rights as citizens under the first amendment and second the assumption that equating the ability to spend money is somehow equivalent to a free speech right. The reality is that money buys access and exposure and corporations in general have more access to money that individuals.

The problem here is how you reconcile fairness in elections with lavish spending of money by special interests. Obviously the more money a corporation has, the more ability they have to get their message out to the voters. Thus the more money they have, the more “free” speech they have. At what point does corporate free spending of money overwhelm the ability of those with limited ability to raise money to have their voice heard?

The issue as the NY Times states is that “The court is poised to reverse longstanding precedents concerning the rights of corporations to participate in politics,” said Nathaniel Persily, a law professor at Columbia. “The only reason to ask for reargument on this is if they’re going to overturn Austin and McConnell.”

The issue is another that denotes the hypocrisy of conservatives. They argue against judicial activism, unless it is their own activism. Its just like conservative Republicans arguing for the sanctity of marriage except when its their marriage. Look not at what they say, but what they do. In this case it appears they are actively working to overturn a law they don’t agree with now, that two years ago a court without Roberts and Alito supported.

The current case as stated by the NY Times

“involves “Hillary: The Movie,” a slashing political documentary released last year while Mrs. Clinton, now the secretary of state, was seeking the democratic presidential nomination. The film was produced by Citizens United, a conservative advocacy group that is a nonprofit corporation.

The McCain-Feingold law bans the broadcast, cable or satellite transmission of “electioneering communications” paid for by corporations in the 30 days before a presidential primary and in the 60 days before a general election.

The law, as narrowed by a 2007 Supreme Court decision, applies to communications “susceptible to no reasonable interpretation other than as an appeal to vote for or against a specific candidate.” It also requires spoken and written disclaimers in the film and ads for it, along with the disclosure of contributors’ names.”

A Supreme Court with several Obama appointees could very well reverse the negative climate against campaign finance restrictions. See related article e.g. on Sonja Sotomayor in NY Times entitled, “A Long Record on Campaign Finance, Often in Support of Regulations” which notes that “In 1996, Judge Sonia Sotomayor delivered a speech comparing campaign contributions to “bribes” and asking whether elected officials could credibly say they were “representing only the general public good, when private money plays such a large role” in helping them win office.”

This threat of new appointees to the US Supreme Court by Obama obviously seems behind this manoeuvring by the present court to reverse McCain Feingold and their two year old decision. This is the type of judicial activism we need to fear – a conservative US Supreme Court hell bent on attacking laws they don’t support. They are trying to act before the Court changes to a more mainstream philosophy that the American people support. This distorted right wing philosophy of judicial activists like Roberts and Alito intent on changing US laws they don’t like will remain a threat until the makeup of the US Supreme Court changes.

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An Open Letter to Senator Patty Murray and Senator Maria Cantwell

Posted on May 26th, 2009 | 1 comment

Dear Senator Patty Murray and Senator Maria Cantwell:

Thirty-seven Senators currently are co-sponsors of S 482 – the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act. The bill requires candidates for US Senate “to file designations, statements and reports for campaign financing in electronic form.”

Both candidates for the US House of Representatives and for President file electronically. The Senate should join them in using the miracle of computers and electronic transmission of data.

I am surprised that you are not a co-sponsor of this bill and urge you to join as a co-sponsor. Washington State was a leader in campaign finance disclosure and still is.

Please add your support to S 482. The public deserves to have campaign finance reports available in a timely fashion.

It is both a waste of taxpayer dollars to send paper reports that need to be re-entered for filing and an unnecessary delay in the public’s right to know in a timely manner who is contributing to campaigns.

I also urge you to work to amend the bill to require monthly campaign reports like we have in Washington State for most candidates. Only reporting campaign contributions and expenditures every 3 months deprives the public of timely disclosure they have a right to know.

Steve Zemke
www.MajorityRules.org
May 25, 2009

see S 482 here.
see co-sponsors here.

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US Senators Still Trying to Figure Out Computers and Internet

Posted on February 19th, 2009 | Comments Off on US Senators Still Trying to Figure Out Computers and Internet

If you think the US Senate is going to figure out a way to track the billions of dollars they are giving away forget it. It seems they still have not even figured out how to use computers and the Internet to even track their own campaigns.

For years Senate Republicans have been blocking legislation requiring them to use computers to move reporting of their campaign financing into the digital age. A New York Times editorial last year summed up the still current status of first filing paper copies of campaign records that then have to be scanned and resent to the Federal Elections Commission.

“Unlike the House, it (the US Senate) still refuses to require electronic filing of its campaign finance data. It clings to an old slow-motion paper system that builds in months of obfuscation by requiring print records that have to be scanned and e-mailed to election officials, who in turn have to do their own processing and printing before the information is publicly available. Senate Republican leaders have, scandalously, been blocking a good bill that would force campaign reporting into the digital age.”

Once again a bill is being introduced to correct this absurd situation. Let’s hope this time that the Democrats have enough audacity to tell the holdout Republicans, particularly Senator John Ensign of Nevada who put a hold on this bill in the past, to get with the program and move into the digital age. It’s way past time.

Talk about wasting money and resources still filing paperwork in the digital age. Of course for the Republicans it was merely a delaying tactic to prevent the public from getting timely information on campaign contributions.

As Reid Wilson reports on the Hill:

Under the current system, Senate campaigns file paper copies of their quarterly disclosure reports with the Secretary of the Senate, which then transmits those reports to the Federal Election Commission.
House campaigns are required to file their reports electronically and directly to the FEC, making for sortable databases and easily compilable statistics.
But the Senate process is cumbersome, often taking weeks to produce results readily available on the Internet.“If you can’t search on the Web, you can’t get timely information about contributions. It takes weeks for the contributions to get in any online database,” Weissman said. “It’s critical if you’re talking about an election coming up and the voters knowing who’s supporting the candidates.”

As it is the Congress still use quarterly filing and it is way past time to also move to monthly campaign reporting. Washington State has done monthly reporting for years. Congress should also and quit hiding information from the public about who is contributing to Senate campaigns.

The Hill notes that Senator Feingold and Senator Cochran first introduced the legislation entitled the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act in 2003. Feingold is going to reintroduce the bill again in the next few weeks and has the support of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

Help urge the US Senate on and send an e-mail to your Senators urging they join the digital revolution in reporting campaign contributions. Click on the link to email Washington State’s Senators:

Senator Maria Cantwell

Senator Patty Murray

To e-mail Senators in other states go to the US Senate website.

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Why are Senators Murray and Cantwell Not Co-Sponsors of S 223?

Posted on September 27th, 2007 | Comments Off on Why are Senators Murray and Cantwell Not Co-Sponsors of S 223?

Senate Bill 223, the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act, is a simple bill only several sentences long. It would increase accountability of campaign disclosure to the public by requiring that candidates for the US Senate timely file their campaign finance reports electronically the same as candidates for the US House and candidates for President currently do.

Some 40 Senate members are sponsors of this bill, including Senators Hilary Clinton, Russ Feingold, Barack Obama, John F Kerry, Ron Wyden, Barbara Boxer, Joseph R Bidden, Jr, Dianne Feinstein, and Christopher Dodd to name a few. Conspicuously absent are Washington State Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell.

This week a third attempt to move the bill was stopped by Republican Senator John Ensign who filed an unrelated amendment that had not been discussed with a hearing. The amendment originated from the office of Republican Senator Mitch McConnell. It was to require outside organizations filing ethic complaints to disclose their donors. Previously McConnell was involved in holding up the bill and would not disclose who had put a hold on the bill. It seems he had. The amendment needs a separate hearing and is an attempt to stop S 223 from being passed.

Currently in this electronic age, the Senate remains back in the pre-computer and Internet days, filing the campaign paperwork by paper, which then has to be added back to the computer network for filing with the FEC or Federal Elections Commission. The result is a significant time lag in the availability of the public to see the disclosure reports.

As the Campaign Finance Institute reports “All S.223 would do is require Senate candidates and party committees to take information they already are required to collect and disclose, and which they already keep for their own files in electronic format, and send it on to the Secretary of the Senate as an electronic file. Instead, Senate committee now print the same information out on paper and the Federal Election Commission has to keypunch it all over again, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars and months of wasted time.”

Washington state candidates have filed forms electronically for a number of years.

One major reform missing however in the Federal legislation is that currently campaigns reports are only filed every 3 months. Washington State for years has had monthly reporting of campaign finance reports. The public deserves better accountability and more timely disclosure than every 3 months. The Federal reporting should also be monthly.

You can contact Senator Patty Murray and Senator Maria Cantwell by clicking on their names. Send them an e-mail urging that they join S 223 as co-sponsors and help to get this needed disclosure measure passed. Urge they support monthly reporting also.

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Time for US Senators to Open Their Campaign Books in a Timely Matter.

Posted on January 13th, 2007 | Comments Off on Time for US Senators to Open Their Campaign Books in a Timely Matter.

Old Time Senators seem fearful of opening their campaign books to voters and for too long have tried to unreasonably hide them from the public. While candidates for the Presidency and House of Representatives file electronically with the Federal Election Commission, members of the US Senate do not. As we’ve written previously, they are still in the dark ages .

As the Federal Elections Commission notes, this means “it can take as long as 30 days before some detailed data filed on paper is available in the Commission’s database.” They have since 2000 requested that Senate candidates file with them electronically but the US Senate has refused to comply, instead having campaigns send paper reports to the Clerk of the Senate, who then forwards them to the FEC to be scanned. Software is obviously available for Senate campaigns to enter data and forward it directly to the FEC since this is what House candidates use.

But that’s only half the story. As Common Cause notes:

The current situation is absurd. Senate campaigns keep their contribution records electronically anyway. What happens next is like a reporting machine designed by the old cartoonist, Rube Goldberg. As it stands now, Senate campaigns take their own electronic records, print them out on paper, ship the paper (cumulatively thousands of pages’ worth) to the Secretary of the Senate, which the Secretary then copies to send to the Federal Election Commission. The FEC then pays six figures of taxpayers’ money to hire a contractor to retype the information into an electronic format!

Senator Russell Feingold (D) on January 9th, 2007 has again filed his “Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act. ” It is filed as S-223 . On Jan 11, 2007 Feingold and Republican co-sponsor Thad Cochran in a press release stated that this “commonsense bill to make our electoral system more transparent is long overdue.” We agree.

But we also think the bill doesn’t go far enough. Compared to Washington State’s campaign Disclosure laws it’s rather wimpy because current disclosure for both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate only require quarterly reporting. Quarterly reporting means that US Senators and Representatives file campaign reports on April 15th, July 15th and Oct 15th before a November election, and on Jan. 31st after the election. This is hardly timely and significant disclosure in light of how quickly money can be raised and spent in campaigns. Disclosure forms need to be filed monthly!

Disclosure in a timely fashion of who is donating to whom and how much is essential to voters being able to know who’s trying to get you to vote for who and why. It helps to know whose interests candidates will be representing even though they will tell you the money has no influence on their votes. Like we are all supposed to believe that, right.

Presidential candidates have the option of reporting monthly or quarterly. I think it should all be monthly. We do it in Washington State for all statewide, legislative and local campaigns. It just makes sense.

Current sponsors of S-223 are Senators Allard, Biden, Boxer, Cornyn, Dorgan,Durban,Feinstein, Graham, Grassley, Hutchinson, Kerry, Landrieu, Lieberman, Lugar, McCain, Murkowski,Obama, Reed, Rockefellar, and Salazar.

Hey Washington State voters – where is Murray and Cantwell? Seems a few other Northwest Senators are also missing. Time to send a few e-mails. Go to the links below and ask them to co-sponsor S-223. Tell them you want to see monthly reporting, not quarterly reporting as they have now.

Washington State Senators:

http://murray.senate.gov/email/index.cfm

http://cantwell.senate.gov/contact/

for other Senators go to:

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

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U.S. Senate Still in Dark Ages on Using Computers.

Posted on April 24th, 2006 | Comments Off on U.S. Senate Still in Dark Ages on Using Computers.

Washington State Republican U.S. Senate Candidate Mike McGavick’s Financial Disclosure forms that were to be filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for the first quarter of the year are still not available online. Senator Maria Cantwell’s financial disclosure forms are available at both the FEC’s website and at opensecrets.org .

The forms for the first quarter, ending March 31st were due to be filed by April 15th. Because April 15th fell on a weekend they were actually due on April 14th under FEC rules.

The strange part about this is that McGavick issued a press release about the quarterly report last Monday, a full week ago. I wondered what happened to their filing since I couldn’t find it. A call to the McGavick campaign treasurer confirmed that they had FedExed the disclosure forms overnight on April 14th to arrive on the 15th. The Federal Election Commission said the date of filing is based on the postmark.

Well what happened to the reports? The FEC today (Monday, March 24th) told me that they had just received McGavick’s financial disclosure report from the Secretary of the Senate and that it would be online within 24 to 48 hours.

Why the delay? Well it’s actually the Senate’s fault it seems, not McGavicks. According to the Federal Election Commission, people running for the U.S. Senate don’t file their campaign finance reports directly with the FEC. Instead they file them with the Secretary of the Senate.

And what complicates things further is that unlike in Washington State, where almost all candidates now file their reporting forms electronically, the Senate computer system is not set up to accept electronic filing. So instead candidates must file paper reports. Then the Secretary of the Senate sends them over to the FEC where they are scanned and entered into their computer data base.

What makes this ridiculous is that candidates running for U.S. President don’t first send their disclosure forms to the White House. Also candidates running for the U.S. House of Representatives don’t first send them to the Clerk of the House. They send their reports directly to the FEC, filing electronically. Electronic filing with the FEC started in 2000 for all candidates receiving or expecting to receive $25,000 or more. All, that is, except for the U.S. Senate.

The FEC says every year its asks that the Senate change to direct electronic filing with them but it seems that there are literally enough Senators in power from the last century that it hasn’t happened. What happened to McGavick’s forms is reason enough to demand Senators enter the computer age. The public has a right to timely information on candidate finances. The Senate is blocking the public’s right to know.

Maria Cantwell’s first quarter report reported that she has raised a total of $8,621,021, has cash on hand of $5,588,420 and a debt of $2,403,357.

Opensecrets.org reports in their breakdown that only 1% of Cantwells contributions or $200,464 came from PAC’s. In addition she has not given any personal contributions to her campaign.

McGavick’s Dec 31, 2005 disclosure showed that he had raised $1,453,349 and had $955,305 in cash on hand at the end of last year.

McGavick’s campaign confirmed that McGavick reported raising $1,213,584.33 in the first quarter of this year.. Then spent $1,272,593.29, which is more than they raised. They had no debt on the books and $896,261.29 cash on hand.

In addition to McGavick’s disclosure reports not being on line yet, those of Mark Wilson, a Democrat running against Cantwell in the Democratic primary were not available. Wilson reported raising $11, 906 as of Dec 31, 2005. He spent it all except for $152.The FEC said they have not received a paper copy of his first quarter forms from the Senate.

Aaron Dixon, running as a Green Party candidate, did file his forms. He reported raising $11,906 in the first quarter and spent all of it except for $642. His funds came from a total of 4 contributors.

The FEC did say that candidates for the Senate can file a courtesy electronic copy when they file the paper copy. McGavick’s campaign confirmed that they did not do this. It is not required by law but it might make the reports available sooner.

The FEC did a public release of information on the 20th of April and Senator Maria Cantwell’s financial reports were released at that time. Her reports were also posted on the FEC’s website.

What also needs to be changed in the law is the preposterous minimal reporting of once a quarter. Candidates running for state office and state legislature in Washington state have monthly reporting.

With quarterly reporting you only have an April 15th, July 15th, and October 15th quarterly report on one of the most expensive races run in our state. That is certainly not adequate public disclosure and needs to be changed.

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