HB19-1318 The Clean Campaign Act of 2019 (Bridges, Foote) [Weissman]

AMENDED: Technical

SIGNED INTO LAW

Goal: To reduce the amount of dark money in Colorado politics by expanding disclosure requirements.

Description:

• Requires any corporation, labor organization, or PAC that contributes, donates, or transfers $10,000 or more to any person for electioneering purposes to disclose all owners of more than 5% of the company if a for-profit corporation and all donors of more than $5,000 if a non-profit. Individuals can request exemption from this disclosure if they have a reasonable belief of harm, threats, harassment, or reprisals. Subject to review by Secretary of State.
• Bans any issue committees and PACs from accepting contributions from non-citizens or foreign governments or corporations. Extends existing restrictions on foreign corporations spending money in elections to include non-citizens and foreign governments.
• If an individual solicits contributions to a PAC within 6 months prior to becoming a candidate, any expenditure by the PAC made during the campaign is considered coordinated and must fall within those rules.
• Expands disclosure requirements on communications worth over $1,000 from just issue committees to anyone.

Additional Information:

Too often, Coloradans feel that their politicians are beholden to big money special interests, and that the rich and powerful are allowed to side-step the rules. Enormous amounts of money are funneled into PACs and issue committees and no one knows where this money comes from. This is an enormous contributor to the negative nature of campaigns, as these organizations feel unaccountable to the public and are thus unafraid of blowback. Right now in Colorado, a $50 contribution to a candidate is more transparent than a $50,000 contribution to Colorado’s version of a SuperPAC. It’s relatively easy right now to hide your donors, and this bill makes that more difficult while ensuring that true dangers from transparency are avoided. Everyone still has the right to make financial contributions and thus “speech”, but they need to be willing to put their name behind it. The need to keep foreign money and influence out of our elections is obvious. For the restrictions on raising money for a PAC prior to becoming a candidate, this is another obvious loophole we need to close. Candidates have done this, most recently in our last governor’s race, and it is a clear way to avoid campaign finance rules on candidates.

Arguments Against: This is an infringement on our right to free speech, as the Supreme Court has found, through financial contributions to candidates. In our current political climate, just about any public disclosure of money contributed to PACs is likely to result in negative attention from the opposite side of the political spectrum. This bill also has stricter requirements on businesses, who cannot exempt themselves from any disclosure requirements, from non-profits and labor unions that can. Given where money in politics comes from, this would seem to favor Democrats over Republicans. The complete conversion of a PAC if someone later becomes a candidate is also overly harsh. There should be more room for money raised after the candidate has declared to be used in the traditional PAC manner.

The exemption is too easy to get and too hard to check. The Secretary of State can look into any exemption, but the process should be opposite. The person wanting an exemption should prove to the Secretary of State that they need it first.