|
Upon release of the bills, the House Democrats issued a press release titled: Morrison Bills Would Bring Accountability, Transparency to Campaign Finance Contributions and Reporting.
However, these bills fail to address the root of the problem. Simply adding phone numbers to finance reports and marking them as "Not Reviewed" will not fix Delaware's corrupt campaign finance system. These bills will not deliver the promised "accountability" or "transparency."
Campaign Donation Limits Unchanged for 30 Years
The General Assembly established campaign finance limits in the early 1990s. The maximum donation for a State Senate or State House campaign was $600, and that limit remains unchanged three decades later. In 2024, it is nearly impossible to run a viable campaign raising money at $600 a pop. If donation limits had risen with inflation, they would be ~$1,330 in 2024.
The limit for statewide offices (Governor, Attorney General, etc.) is set at $1,200, which is similarly inadequate for funding a campaign.
The Delaware Department of Elections campaign contribution table can be found here.
If a campaign has no money, what is a politician to do? Raise money darkly, and they do.
PACs - The Secret Money in Delaware Politics
Delaware's elected officials do not care about campaign limits because they have a back door - Political Action Committees (PACs). As of year-end 2023, Delaware had over 130 PACs registered as "Active," and these PACs are where the real money goes. And opening a PAC is a trivial matter (I should know; I've done it).
For example:
Tomorrow PAC
In June 2022, this PAC raised $10,000 each from Michael Bills and Sonia Smith (at the same address in Alexandria, VA). I am still determining what Mike and Sonia have to do with Delaware, but they cut big checks! Then, in October 2022, the Tomorrow PAC received a $25,000 donation from California resident and comedian Amy Schumer. She finds Delaware humorously worthy of a fat check!
These donations were among dozens of large ones made to the Tomorrow PAC, which funneled the money to other PACs.
Campaign Finance Reporting System is HORRIBLE!
There are many more examples (e.g., the connected attorney who gave $60,000 to one PAC or the public-sector union giving hundreds of thousands of dollars across multiple PACs). However, researching contributions in Delaware requires using an outdated and cumbersome campaign finance reporting system, which involves manually pulling up individual reports and paging through them one by one.
Why is the system so bad? Because the political class wants it that way.
Go try it: https://cfrs.elections.delaware.gov
Note that you cannot find 2024 donations because campaigns are not required to disclose any donations until August. Also, all election-year contributions are spread across five reports, not in a single place.
Why can't you examine the 2024 contributions in 2024? Because the political class wants it that way.
All of this is Fixable
The Federal Election Commission requires monthly reports from State political parties and federal candidates. The Delaware Democratic Party and the Delaware Republican Party can be found here and here, respectively.
If Representative Morrison wanted to provide accountability and transparency, he should implement the following recommendations:
- First, raise campaign limits to something reasonable (Amy Schumer would recommend $25,000, and that amount would have the benefit of making many PACs superfluous).
- Second, provide the funding necessary to develop an online system for Delaware voters. This system should be searchable by campaign, PAC, donor, or expenditure. It should make the data available across time and election cycles, allow for data download into a spreadsheet, and ensure that it can be downloaded in part or whole.
- Third, mandate monthly postings for all revenues and expenditures for all political activity in Delaware.
As James Madison noted 230 years ago, citizens are the best disinfectant against political corruption. Put Delawareans in charge of keeping their politicians honest.
|
