The push to marry the digital revolution with the craze for campaign finance reform hit the California Legislature with a double whammy Monday.
In the morning, California Secretary of State Bill Jones announced a public/private partnership to implement a voluntary electronic filing program that will give the public access to California campaign finance information. In the afternoon, Assemblyman Jim Cuneen (R-Cupertino) held a hearing on a bill mandating that public officials file electronic records of campaign contributions upon exceeding a threshold of US$50,000.
In an era in which White House coffee klatches rouse cries for an independent counsel, the electronic-filing initiatives are an attempt to cast some digital sunshine on the paper jungle that has grown up since voters passed the Political Reform Act of 1974. The law requires state candidates to disclose the source of campaign funds.
"Our goal has been to give the people of California real and immediate access to political campaign contribution and expenditure information," Jones said at a Monday news conference. "Today that goal becomes a reality."
Joined by representatives from the California Voter Foundation, the watchdog group Common Cause, the League of Women Voters, Consumer's Union, and the California Newspaper Publishers Association, Jones announced the implementation of a demonstration program to be developed with SDR Technologies Inc. SDR has developed similar systems for Hawaii and Oklahoma, among other places.
The demonstration program is scheduled to go online in time for the state's 1998 June primary with a tracking system showing campaign-fund reports for many statewide candidates and committees. The system will be set up to detail contributions made in the last 16 days before elections.
Cuneen introduced his bill, AB63, before an Assembly Elections Committee hearing Monday. A Senate companion, SB7, introduced by Quentin Kopp (I-San Francisco), is scheduled to be heard before the Senate Elections and Reapportionment Committee on Wednesday.
Although the measures have bipartisan support, many anticipate that building the two-thirds majority needed in both houses to amend the 1974 disclosure law may make passage impossible.
Beth Miller, Jones' press secretary, said the secretary of state's program is an attempt to speed up the drive toward digital sunshine laws, which have been largely stalled in the last two legislative sessions. Bills like Cuneen's "were backwatered just last year," Miller said. "Hopefully the demonstration project will help us avoid a similar outcome."
