Read about this past week's efforts by Common Cause. We have another occasion to celebrate: Common Cause is relaunched in the state of Hawaii.
Federal Elections Commission (FEC): Time to Rethink It
CC President Bob Edgar sent a
letter on May 21 to the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration Chair, Senator Dianne Feinstein, to coincide with their meeting to consider the nominations of three candidates to the FEC. He stated that it is time to rethink the FEC. He urged them to take advantage of the opportunity their meeting affords by embarking on a plan to create a new and better designed federal election agency that could enforce the campaign finance laws Congress passes and that would avoid the politicization that has made the current FEC an ineffective and failed agency. CC believes there are models for an FEC that Congress can adopt that will put upholding the nation’s campaign finance laws above party loyalty. One model of other more effective law enforcement agencies, for example, are those agencies headed by a single administrator who is appointed for a fixed term by the President and confirmed by the Senate.
Hawaii finally gave it's ethics commission some teeth.
There's some serious geographic discrepencies between gubernatorial campaign contributions in New York.
North Carolina lawmakers are loading up on campaign contributions before a reform law goes into effect.
Is Ken Blackwell engaging in a little pay-to-play action in Ohio?
Common Cause Pennsylvania is one of the reform groups suing to decertify untrustworthy electronic voting machines across the state.
Common Cause New York released an excellent new report on the state's soft money loophole.
The campaigning in Wisconsin is so dirty it's distracting from the real issues voters care about.
The California Senate passed SCA 3, a redistricting reform bill, bringing it one major step closer to the ballot.
Matt Brix of Common Cause New Mexico brings us an update on how the Voters First Pledge campaign is going.
The Comments section is all yours to tell us about any stories in your state that we may have missed. This is also going to be the Weekend Open Thread, so post on whatever topic you feel like. Here's one idea: the five-games-in-four-days Yankees-Red Sox showdown.
After five years of fighting for legislation, the Hawaii Ethics Commission will finally be able to place fines on ethics violations. A new state law, passed just before election season, allows the Ethics Commission to impose a $500 fine for each violation.
Under the old system, the Commission could only declare guilt or innocence, and any punitive measures would target the state body that employed the individual, not the individual him or herself. Moreover, the Commission could not act once an implicated individual left a state position, a loophole that the new law will close.
"It's kind of like holding a trial or something like that, but there's no penalty if you find the person violated a law. Just everybody goes home. It doesn't make much sense," [executive director of the Commission Dan] Mollway said.
A fine of $500 may not be hefty in itself, but numerous counts accompany most ethics violations. For example, engaging in private business while in office often requires state resources and time, and thus carries with it the potential for multiple ethics violations.
Even in ordinary times, the commission receives a steady stream of complaints. But as campaigns kick into gear, the flow increases, totaling up to 300 per season - mostly about campaigners using state resources, Mollway said.
According to Mollway, the new law is a "milestone" for ethics reform in Hawaii and indicates an increased acceptance of tighter ethics standards. Let's hope that other states attain a similar respect for appropriate ethics reform legislation.
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