McWaters/Wilson race lacked disclosure
By Brian Kirwin | Sunday, December 6th, 2009 | Policy, PoliticsGeneral Assembly members should change this.
Yesterday’s election between Jeff McWaters and Rosemary Wilson included tons of advertising and spending. Rumors of how much was spent, and where it come from, abound.
The last time a campaign finance report was filed by either campaign was July 15th! And the way I’m reading the SBE schedules, that’s all the law requires.
That’s absurd. The current requirements for campaigns in special elections are these:
1) File reports in July and January for previous six months
2) File 8 days before the GENERAL special election
That’s it. These candidates could raise and spend a million dollars raised from anyone and spent on anything and no one would know it until we hit those dates mentioned above, well after the primary election date.
Meanwhile, candidates in November elections have to file no less than 8 reports a year, and 3 in the final 6 weeks of a campaign.
If campaign finance and disclosure is to mean anything at all, someone has got to realign these requirements. Virginia should close the special election loophole that allows nomination campaigns to forgo practically all financial disclosure until after Election Day.
Large contributions received during the 12 days prior to a nomination contest (over $1,000+ for State Senate candidates) are required to be filed within 24 hours. I’m not seeing any, so I guess we assume neither McWaters or Wilson got any $1,000 contributions since November 23rd, or State Board or VPAP is wrong.
Still, it’s silly to require large closing weeks disclosure when a nomination contest is free of filing any reports at all unless it stretches over six months.
Would we adopt the standards for primary disclosures for November races? After the June 30th period report, no candidate needs to file another report? It’s silly on it’s face.
Part of the problem is that these special elections are the result of November victories, and the window of time is usually about 3 weeks between officially announcing the election and the actual nomination contest.
At the very least, the rule for filing a report 8 days prior to the General election should also apply to nominating contests.
I think it would be a positive change.
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About the author
The right wants to jeer him. The left wants to censor him. Moderates usually want both. Brian Kirwin is a political consultant and public relations strategist in Virginia Beach with a lightning-rod flair. Brian also serves on the VB Arts & Humanities Commission and frequently appears on Hampton Roads theatrical stages, if only to prove that all actors aren’t liberals. Kirwin’s columns stir up debate and hit the political scene with no punches pulled.
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13 Responses to "McWaters/Wilson race lacked disclosure"
Great point Brian. Special election regulations do need to be reformed to provide the citizens and voters with more transparency. Clearly it is important to learn where money is coming from to figure out what special interests will own the next elected representative.
Brian,
So your candidate lost, and the next day you’re calling for a rules change?
I’m certainly not against transparency. However, I have to call you on doing the very thing you’ve pointed fingers at others for doing.
My candidate? Henry, I don’t own candidates, so no one was “my candidate.”
You want to make this about me, even though you admit you agree? You’re a sad man.
The very reason that Virginia has no campaign finance restrictions is because there is supposed to be complete transparency in our reporting of all campaign contributions. I agree that there should be some reporting requirements prior to the election date, no matter how little time that gives to do so. Once the campaign is over, the interest in where the money came from drops for the average citizen – this information needs to be out there beforehand.
At first, I was in agreement with Brian and Reid on this. Reid by the way, is NOT a fan of Rosemary Wilson and is a high profile member of the VBTA which endorsed McWaters. He and Brian just happen to agree on transparency here.
However, this isn’t a normal election. Its not even a “Special Election”. McWaters won the Republican nomination for the Special Election. The lack of transparency isn’t as large a problem here. Voters in these events likely already know “Tax and Spend” Rosemary Wilson. They also probably are aware of Amerigroup. Some might even read the paper and recall the issue in Illinois etc. associated with McWaters. Who among those at the limited number of polls didn’t know McWaters had the finanicial advantage? Who didn’t know and associate Wilson’s voting record with the current state of Virginia Beach’s budget? Who didn’t already know of Wilson’s left of center voting record and that there was evidence that McWaters is not quite the fiscal conservative that the VBTA hopes he will morph into?
McWaters and Universal Healthcare? Isn’t that like McDonnell’s position on leash laws in Utah? When will a State Senator vote on nationwide issues? He won’t. Its kinda funny watching the consultants and candidate activists say that this race implies what voters feel about ObamaCare and how that affects 2nd District candidates. McWaters won with his financial advantage, endorsements by high level Republicans (which help steer party faithful), and forming coalitions with a myriad of special interest groups that are made up of motivated voters that show up at the polls. Once again, we faced the “lesser of two evils”. Its no wonder the Democrats are content to sit this one out.
To me, transparency is less of an issue here. After all, it is a preliminary to a special election. Unusual circumstances forcing a fast replacement. In many cases, this means much of the term has already past and that voters will have the chance to reject the interim replacement at the next real election, right? Things could be worse. Kaine at least can’t appoint a Democrat crony to serve the remainder of Stolle’s term.
If there are even more skeletons in our new state senator’s closet, there will be plenty of time for the Democrat machine to dig them up and run a prepared candidate for a normally challenging district in the next go round. Or, they could determine that he is “their kind of RINO” and leave him be, scandals or not. This is, after all, how the Democrats infiltrate the GOP with candidates that the Left prefers to work with. Heaven forbid in that hypothetical, that there’d be a GOP primary challenge in that case. Then you’d have the usual accusations of helping the Democrats win by causing trouble for the RINO.
Perhaps, we’ll get lucky. Maybe McWaters will turn out to be more of a fiscal conservative. Past personal/corporate support of issues and the “Yes” campaign, is indeed different than actual voting records. A different set of criteria for decision making will be before him besides just Amerigroup business decisions.
Britt, your “who among us didn’t know” logic could rapidly apply to many campaigns. Would some School Board candidate be absolved from disclosing his campaign finance simply because “who didn’t know” he or she had a lot of money?
Your logic that campaign funds can be secret slush funds simply because it’s not a Republican versus a Democrat makes no sense to me. 8 days before a special election, candidates are required to disclose. I don’t understand why 8 days prior to a nominating contest, the same shouldn’t be required.
You’re smokescreen of campaign issues contributes nothing to the issue. The only question is “Should campaign finance laws apply to candidates in a nomination contest?” I think so.
I don’t think they can do before nomination contests- because SBE doesn’t track when each one is (just when the party has to notify them of winner). Plus if you had a two tiered contest (electing delegates and then going to a convention) which one would you file before?
Only way to solve this is to require instant reporting of all candidates, daily.
Smoke screen? That was just additional commentary on my part.
To your main point, I was just saying it wasn’t as big an issue. Not that it wasn’t one. Further, that it is more a party issue than an SBE issue because the party was deciding how they wanted to choose the candidate. Yes, there is a difference. To me, anyway.
You open the party process up for a whole new can of worms if you’re not careful. As it stands, you have to move super fast for special elections. You open too many doors and the SBE will want to regulate what shirts, hats, stickers, and buttons you wear during party nomination voting.
I’m wondering at what point putting up additional obstacles in such a short time frame would make things unwieldly. Maybe the RPV could require some sort of disclosure? I just don’t see what the big difference would have been.
Yes, I see a huge difference between a party’s process of nomination and the hypothetical campaign funding of a school board candidate that has gone beyond the party process into the public election process. At that point, you’re official and the damage of the lack of disclosure is magnified by dealing with a voting public that might not follow politics on a daily basis and not as aware of individual records.
NLS, SBE requires reporting of large pre-election contributions before nominating contests. Apparently, they do track when each one is. They state for 12 days prior to a nominating contest, you need to file any large pre-election contributions. Can’t be to much trouble to have a full reporting requirement in there.
Henry is right. Every BD reader could see Wilson was “your candidate,” Brian, so why attack him? Of course, no one owns the candidate, but she was clearly the one you promoted and assisted. That’s fine. I was just disappointed to see a BD contributor show such strong bias toward one Republican candidate over another in his posts, but perhaps that is perfectly accepted. I just dislike seeing Republicans beat up other Republicans, which I think it makes us more susceptible to the Dems.
Hey Blondie, you’ll soon learn that beginning your comment with “Henry is right” quickly discredits your whole comment.
Who’s attacking anyone? I’m not attacking McWaters. I’m commenting on an improvement to state disclosure laws.
As for your silly bias comments, I was biased for Bill Bolling over his Republican opponent Muldoon this year. Unfortunately, Muldoon didn’t pay you to come on here to complain about it.
But keep attacking me, fake name girlie, and say how you don’t like Republicans who attack other Republicans. You must not like yourself so much, then.
It’s becoming more and more apparent that the “Caesarship” is available to the highest bid of dinars. Soon a personal agenda will become apparent and those who were the advocates because of “revenge” will squeal the loudest.
So “conservativemom” must be just as angry at “Gosport” or whatever for being so clearly in the Rigell camp, or for the guest column from the McWaters camp last week as well? I’d rather see nobody from a ‘camp’ get to contribute, just comment.
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