By CHANGE Illinois!
Today, CHANGE Illinois! sent the following letter to all members of the General Assembly. Please call your state legislators today and ask them to tell their legislative leader that Illinois needs legislation that limits campaign contributions and that money from legislative leaders and political parties must be limited, too. The CHANGE Illinois! Hotline will connect you to their offices. Please dial 1-800-719-3020.
October 13, 2009
Dear legislator:
CHANGE Illinois!, a coalition with members representing more than 2 million Illinois voters, has been a strong advocate of legislation to create a contribution limits system that is fair to all, has reasonable limit amounts, more frequent disclosure of contributions and has a strong enforcement mechanism, including random audits of campaign committees.
Although we hope ongoing negotiations will lead to agreement on a system of comprehensive campaign contribution limits and strong enforcement, it is possible that House members will be asked Wednesday to vote on a proposal that has not been agreed to by CHANGE Illinois! and would fall short of the kind of reform that would merit renewed confidence in Illinois government.
Unresolved at this writing is the question of whether campaign committees controlled by legislative leaders and political parties should be limited in what they can contribute to other political committees. We believe they should not be exempted, and we urge you to insist they be included in any limits legislation you consider.
Illinois deserves a limits system that increases the likelihood of election competition and gives voters reason to believe government will serve the common good. Carving out such an exemption for parties and leaders would distort the limits system and bias it in favor of current officeholders and candidates favored by party and legislative leaders.
In May, the General Assembly passed House Bill 7. As we said at the time, HB 7 was entirely unacceptable. It contained too many loopholes, including no limits on coordinated spending by political parties and legislative leaders on behalf of candidates.
After HB 7 was criticized by nearly every newspaper in Illinois, the legislative leaders asked Gov. Quinn to veto HB 7. As part of the veto agreement, the Governor, the four legislative leaders and CHANGE Illinois! pledged to negotiate a better bill.
Our negotiations have led to tentative agreements on most provisions, but discussions continue on the issue of limits for leaders and parties.
If Illinois limits all contributions except those by legislative caucuses and political parties, those organizations will be more powerful because they will be able to send unparalleled contributions to selected committees or individuals.
Instead, Illinois’ campaign finance system should encourage candidate independence, diversity and allegiance to the voters by limiting transfers from all entities.
An October 9 memo to you from David Ellis, Counsel to the Speaker, made several points that likely will emerge again in debate on any legislation that does not limit leaders and parties. The enclosed document provides the CHANGE Illinois! viewpoint on each of the key points in that memo. We would be happy to discuss any part of it with you.
It is encouraging that our negotiations to date have resulted in considerable progress. The fact that the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate have agreed to adopt a system of contributions limits and significantly increase disclosure is recognition that our current campaign finance system is not working in the best interest of Illinois.
The critical decision before you now can ensure that Illinois creates a campaign finance system that applies fair and reasonable contribution limits on all and that significantly strengthens reporting and compliance measures. We hope you will support our call for an approach that meets these criteria and truly qualifies as real reform.
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CHANGE Illinois! responds to legal memo sent to House members on Oct. 9, 2009, by Speaker’s Counsel
CLAIM: “Nearly all modifications requested by CHANGE Illinois” are contained in the legislation.”
FACT: First, we haven’t seen any legislative language, so it is impossible to say whether or not it meets our tentative agreements. It is true that the Governor’s office, legislative leaders, and CHANGE Illinois! representatives appear to have made considerable progress on a number of issues. All the parties to the discussions have made concessions. We still clearly have a difference of opinion concerning contribution limits to candidates from legislative caucuses and political parties. We believe extending limits to all committees is an important part of any effective, fair limits system.
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CLAIM: “The proposal outlined in the memo is ‘nearly identical’ to the proposal from CHANGE Illinois!”
FACT: The bills that most closely track the original CHANGE Illinois! proposal are House Bill 24 and Senate Bill 1768. Introduced months ago, HB 24 is in House Rules Committee and SB 1768 is in the Senate Assignments Committee. However, as part of a good faith negotiating process we have made numerous concessions and substantial changes to our original proposal.
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CLAIM: “For primary elections, CHANGE Illinois! proposes that all political party committees combined (other than legislative caucus committees) can only contribute $25,000 to a candidate.”
FACT: Yes, that’s part of one of our recent suggestions in negotiations. We also made clear that we are flexible and offered these for discussion. Since Gov. Quinn vetoed HB 7 more than six weeks ago, we have not seen any legislative language from the legislative leaders, despite the fact that the veto session has begun. In an effort to move negotiations forward, we presented draft legislative language for discussion on October 5.
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CLAIM: “The only major outstanding issue is whether political parties should be limited in their assistance to candidates running under their party banner.”
FACT: Because we have not seen any legislative language from the leaders, it is impossible to know which issues are outstanding and which are resolved. Party contribution limitation is a major outstanding issue, and it includes limits on committees controlled by legislative leaders, as well as political parties. The memo suggests that legislative leader PACs are political party organizations. They are not – legally or conceptually. State political parties are state-level organizations directly connected to local party structures at the precinct, township, wards and county levels. In contrast, legislative caucuses have narrow interests and are controlled by the individual legislative leaders. If contribution limits apply to candidate committees, they also should apply to legislative caucus committees, which committees representing chamber-based, partisan groups of legislators which number less than 70 people in each case.
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CLAIM: “To suggest that parties cannot spend unlimited amounts to elect a candidate under their banner is like saying a gubernatorial candidate cannot spend unlimited amounts from his own campaign fund to elect himself.”
FACT: That claim purposely confuses limits on spending with limits on contributions. We have not proposed to limit uncoordinated spending by any committee. That would be unconstitutional. Under our proposal, parties would be free to spend money purchasing broadcast commercials, direct mail, canvassers, etc. As long as that spending is not coordinated with the candidate, it would be permitted. The same is true of the federal contribution limits system and in every other state with contribution limits.
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CLAIM: “Because political parties will spend money without coordinating it with the candidate, candidates will ‘have less input on the spending of money in their own elections.'”
FACT: The same argument can be made about limits on all other entities, but the legislative leaders only use it to argue against limits on contributions they control. If limits on parties would encourage independent expenditures with negative consequences, then it follows that limits on companies, unions, and associations also would encourage independent expenditures with negative consequences. You cannot accept the trade-off that come with limits on contributions from private sources and not accept them for political parties. The best limits system places limits on everyone.
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CLAIM: “The CHANGE Illinois! proposal would make it much more difficult for the media, or ordinary citizens, to calculate how much money is being spent on a race.”
FACT: Anyone who makes independent expenditures (including political parties) would still have to disclose receipts and expenditures, so it is not correct to say that limits on parties would reduce disclosure if parties engaged in independent expenditures. In addition, this is the same logically inconsistent argument that limits will produce negative consequences if applied to political parties, but somehow will not produce the same negative consequences when applied to private contributors.
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CLAIM: “Political parties need the freedom to respond to smear campaigns from unregulated outside groups, who face no caps on either contributions or expenditures.”
FACT: Again, the CHANGE Illinois! proposal does not limit uncoordinated spending by a political party. A party and a legislative caucus committee would be able to spend in response to outside attacks. Party and caucus committees also could ask contributors to give directly to a candidate, and the candidate could decide how to use that money.
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CLAIM: “Under the CHANGE Illinois! proposal, while any number of different PACs could each contribute $50,000 during a primary, all of the political party committees would, in the aggregate, be limited to $25,000. Their proposal assumes that political parties, be they at the state, county, township or ward level, are essentially one entity, even thought they operate separately.”
FACT: We have been willing to negotiate this point. However, we do not believe our proposal tilts the playing field to benefit unions, business or any PACs. However, the arguments outlined in the memo would tilt the playing field in favor of political parties and legislative caucuses. If unions, corporations, and associations have limits and political parties and legislative caucuses do not, then political parties and legislative caucuses would have a strategic advantage they do not currently enjoy.Under the current law, everyone who wants to contribute or spend on behalf of a candidate is treated equally because he or she can do whatever they want. The position described in the memo would use “reform” to gain an advantage for parties and leaders over groups that are potential rivals in legislative elections.
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CLAIM: “Twenty-five states permit political parties to make unlimited contributions to their candidates in the general election, as we propose. Only two of those states impose some limit during the primary election. Our proposal would place Illinois squarely in the mainstream of campaign finance reform. In fact, of these 25 states, Illinois would be among the strictest in its regulation. Fifteen of these 25 states not only permit parties to make unlimited contributions but permit others to do so as well, such as individuals and PACs.”
FACT: It is important to compare apples to apples. There are 12 states that have either no limit on any contributors (such as Illinois) or limit only direct union and/or corporate contributions (such as Alabama). There are 38 states with comprehensive systems of contribution limits. Of the states that have adopted comprehensive systems of contribution limits, 65 percent (25 out of 38) have put limits on contributions from political parties as part of a balanced system.
The proposal to allow unlimited contributions from political parties is outside the mainstream of campaign finance reform, weaker and less balanced than 25 other state laws and stronger than only 11 other states (excluding Illinois). The fact that some states put limits on political party contributions and limits on political party coordinated spending on behalf of a candidates and some do not only shows that this is a policy decision that different states deal with differently.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on October 14, 2009