Metro Pulse/Insights/Campaign Contributions

Comment
on this story

by Joe Sullivan

Sheriff candidate Jimmy Jones' anomalous report that he raised $29,880 of his $76,090 in campaign funds from unidentified contributions of $100 or less made a mockery of his campaign attack on Sheriff Tim Hutchison's accounting for drug money.

What's worse, the timing of Jones' report made a mockery of the state's campaign contribution disclosure law that only requires reporting seven days in advance of an election. Nearly 10,000 Knox County voters (more than a quarter of the total turnout in the May 7 primary election) had already cast their ballots in early voting without any knowledge Jones had raised so much money in such a dubious way.

The lack of any disclosure requirement further in advance of an election is just one of many defects in Tennessee's law governing campaign contributions, which is among the laxest in the nation. The absence of any means to detect abuse of the provision that allows contributions of $100 or less to remain anonymous is obviously another. And the list goes on to include such offensive features as requiring anyone who wants to look at a candidate's contribution report to put in an appearance at an election commission and fill out a form that is then furnished to the candidate.

Tennessee is one of only eight states that don't require disclosure considerably further in advance of elections, and none of the others have early voting. Indeed, it was the 1996 advent of early voting, which commences nearly three weeks ahead of election day, that placed Tennessee at the bottom of the barrel.

Yet the state Legislature, which sets the ground rules for local as well as state elections, has shown no recent disposition to make them more stringent. Former Sen. Bud Gilbert, who used to champion such causes, is no longer there, and his collaborator in years past, Sen. Steve Cohen of Memphis, has seemingly lost his ken for them. "I don't see any significant changes coming," Cohen says.

Cities, unlike counties, have some leeway to set requirements of their own as long as they don't conflict with the state's. Knoxville, to its credit and alone among the state's municipalities, has done just that. Under an ordinance that Mayor Victor Ashe guided through City Council last year, mayoral and Council candidates must start filing monthly contribution and expenditures reports three months prior to the city's September primary election and then again in mid-October prior to November voting. These reports must identify every campaign contributor and outlay regardless of amount.

Are these requirements burdensome? "No," says Councilman Rob Frost who got elected under them last fall. "The benefits far outweighed the burdens," he continues. "They gave me a regular feel for what the campaign was taking in and paying out, and it was no big deal to scribble down the names of small contributors."

If the city of Knoxville's prescription is too much for state legislators to swallow, then they'd do well to look to federal election requirements as a model. These call for quarterly reporting of contributions, supplemented by reports 12 days before primary and general elections and what are termed "48 hour" reports of contributions of $1,000 or more after that. Contributions of $200 or less do not have to be itemized, but records must be maintained of them so that if any contributors make multiple gifts totaling more than $200 they can and must be identified on the aggregate amount. Moreover, the Federal Election Commission maintains an accessible compendium of all congressional candidate reports on its web site.

That's a far cry from the state of affairs in Tennessee where, in order to find out who's contributed what to a gubernatorial candidate, a journalist in Knoxville must present himself at the offices of the Registry of Election Finance in Nashville. Of course, he or she need not bother to do so until seven days prior to an election. As an exception to this rule, candidates who start collecting money more than a year ahead must make an interim filing on Jan. 29. That's why Phil Bredesen and Van Hilleary have disclosed their contributions up to that date, whereas Jim Henry, Randy Nichols and Charles Smith have yet to make a disclosure.

At least in the case of local elections, including state legislative races, it only requires a trip to the Knox County Election Commission to get the information—and to fill out the candidate notification form. Is there any justification for this notification?

"There is none, except to discourage the public from exercising its right to get public information," says attorney Rick Hollow, who is a specialist in freedom of information issues.

Once having obtained this information, anyone is free to publish it, post it on a web site or disseminate it in any which way. But the Election Commission itself won't be free to do so until state law is changed.

That change process needs to start forthwith. Perhaps Sen. Tim Burchett could belatedly start trying to fill the shoes of his predecessor, Bud Gilbert, and take the lead on this instead of futzing around with bills aimed at demolition of historic buildings.

At the same time, the city's ordinance—as good as it is—needs strengthening in two respects. For one, it needs to specify a date up to which contributions received must be included in a candidate's monthly report. Secondly, it needs to require itemized reporting of contributions received after Oct. 15. The latter would prevent shenanigans such as former candidate Greg Pinkston's reporting some $8,000 received from unidentified donors flying below the state standard in his unsuccessful City Council race last fall.

A Frost-sponsored amendment to the city's ordinance that would have accomplished these purposes gained City Council's approval by an 8 to 1 vote on first reading in February, with Mayor Ashe's strong support. But the mayor was strangely silent when Council flip-flopped to defeat Frost's proposal 7 to 2 on second reading. "There was no point in participating in a funeral. It had to do with Frost's relationships with his colleagues," is all that Ashe will say about the second vote. Or was it because Frost has become a thorn in Ashe's side by asking too many questions? In any event, the tomfoolery needs to stop, and the ordinance should be amended.