Tainted Democracy

REPORTS

TAINTED DEMOCRACY:

HOW MONEY DISTORTS THE ELECTION PROCESS IN ILLINOIS
AND WHAT MUST BE DONE TO REFORM THE CAMPAIGN SYSTEM

Excerpts from the Final Report of the Campaign Finance Task Force

After two years of study and public hearings, a task force headed by former
Gov. William Stratton and former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon reached agreement
on reforming the way campaign dollars are raised and spent in Illinois elections.
The group calls for greater disclosure of contributions and expenditures, a limit
on the dollars legislative leaders can contribute to legislative races and the creation
of a permanent commission to monitor political money.

Illinois is seriously ill, suffering from overexposure to political money. This condition has produced a chronic infection that has been left uncontrolled for too many years. Restoring a healthy political system will require constant monitoring and frequent therapeutic intervention if the patient is to get healthier. But no state in the union takes worse care of itself. Illinois exerts no control over the flow of private money through its political system, and barely manages to keep track of its vital signs and viral load. The illness may not be fatal, but it is debilitating and disfiguring. It makes us weak, and it makes us look bad.

Illinois needs a better regimen of monitoring and intervention. We need to know where the money comes from, where it goes and what it buys. We need to limit the amount of political money going through the system. We need accountability from those who give the money and those who get it. And we need to understand that, yes, we can get well, or at least better, if we face our illness frankly and determine to fight it. For if we choose to continue in our passivity, if the governor and the legislature and other state leaders ignore the public's cry for help, people will feel even more disconnected from the electoral process. The campaign finance system is so out of control that our life blood, democracy, is tainted.

The task force conducted a statewide poll for this project. More than eight in 10 Illinoisans say they are "concerned" or "very concerned" about the role of money in Illinois politics. There are no contribution limits and no spending limits. Neither is there a system of public financing. No state exercises less control than Illinois over the role that money plays in the political process. But information about candidates' contributions and expenditures is limited and not easily accessible to the average voter. The public perceives the role of money in Illinois politics as a serious problem — a fact that contributes to the public's cynicism about government.

Statement of the problem

Adding to a feeling of disenfranchisement among Illinoisans is a perception that "special interests" wield an inordinate amount of control over Illinois government by making large, frequent contributions to candidates, especially to Illinois' legislative leaders. The four legislative leaders virtually control who can run a viable campaign for a seat in the Illinois General Assembly. For many citizens, the cost of running a successful campaign is a barrier to entering a race at all.

The cost of elections in Illinois continues to set records with each election cycle. That record for statewide and legislative candidates in 1994 was $63 million. The record for a state Senate race became $1.3 million in the 29th

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District, in which Republican Kathleen Parker defeated incumbent Democrat Grace Mary Stern. The House record became $701,000 in the 103rd District, in which Republican Rick Winkel defeated incumbent Democrat Laurel Prussing. General election spending for all legislative races almost doubled from 1990 to 1994, from $9.5 million to $18.5 million. Final contribution data for the 1996 elections will not be available until after reports are filed at the end of January 1997, but the results are easy to predict: even higher records for spending, more groups contributing more money, more legislative leader control, more expensive races, and less competition for incumbents not targeted by the legislative leaders. And no one who observed the last round of campaigns can argue successfully that these kinds of expenditures elevated the discussion of important issues.

There are no restrictions on how candidates can spend their campaign contributions — a fact that sometimes leads to abuses and allows candidates to spend the money for personal use.

And for Illinoisans, information about campaign contributions and expenditures is not easily accessible in a timely manner and is unnecessarily difficult to analyze.

"Isn't there something wrong?"

These are the major reasons the Illinois Campaign Finance Task Force believes that changes in the Illinois campaign finance system are necessary. People throughout the state are asking, "Isn't there something wrong with spending a half-million or even more than a million dollars to win a seat in the Illinois General Assembly? When will the madness stop?" Money from interest groups continues to flow quickly into the system; contributions to candidates from gambling interests leaped from being almost non-existent in 1990 to becoming a major financial force in the elections of 1994 and 1996. Reasonable people conclude that such interests have motives that go far beyond just wanting to support good candidates.

As we concluded two years of deliberations late in 1996, it was clear that campaign finance reform had become a major issue nationally. Campaign finance reform became a hot item at the federal level just before the election last November, propelling voters in several states to approve initiatives or referenda on campaign finance reform.

But no clear consensus has yet emerged on solutions for Illinois' campaign finance system. We understand the legal and political constraints involved in changing Illinois' campaign finance law. We understand the potential conflicts between regulating campaign finances and the First Amendment right to free speech. We also emphasize our realization that other variables besides money influence the outcome of elections. These other variables include the quality of the candidates themselves, the presence or absence of an incumbent in the election, as well as the demographics of the voters in any given legislative district.

Because the issues are complex, because the external variables in the debate continue to change, and because this year's "reforms" may become outmoded by next year, we are recommending the creation of an Illinois Campaign Finance Oversight Commission to monitor campaign finance laws and to become an established and permanent voice for reform.

The concern among citizens and officials alike has energized us to tackle this project and make some practical recommendations for change in Illinois. We believe that by addressing campaign finance reform in highly visible ways and establishing an Oversight Commission that will revisit the issue regularly, the General Assembly will take a step forward in restoring public confidence in state government. People want their government to be fair, honest, open and responsive, but current practices in campaign fundraising and spending contribute to the public's feelings of alienation and suspicion. Campaign finance reforms are fundamental building blocks toward restoring public trust.

So this report and our recommendations provide a road map. Change can happen incrementally, but change there must be, now.

ABOUT THE TASK FORCE
The 15-member Illinois Campaign Finance Task Force was organized in 1995 as part of the Illinois Campaign Finance Project.
The project was made possible by a grant from the Joyce Foundation of Chicago. Illinois Issues publisher Ed Wojcicki directed the two-year project in collaboration with the Institute for Public Affairs at the University of Illinois at Springfield.
The task force's report was released January 29 in Chicago and Springfield. Copies were given to all members of the Illinois General Assembly and all constitutional officers.
The principal investigator and researcher was Kent Redfield, a professor of political studies at UIS. With the help of staff and students he prepared a comprehensive, computerized database of 1994 election contributions and expenditures.
To receive a free copy of the full 51-page report, Tainted Democracy, or to inquire about other reports available from the Illinois Campaign Finance Project, write: Ed Wojcicki, publisher, Illinois Issues, University of Illinois at Springfield, Springfield, IL 62794-9243; or call 217-786-6084.
For more information, contact Illinois Issues' World Wide Web site at http: //www.uis.edu/~blee/ii.html. From that site, click on Illinois Issues' Campaign Finance Project.

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A call to action

The time is ripe for campaign finance reform in Illinois. The feedback from our polling and our town hall meetings throughout the state makes it abundantly clear that Illinoisans want change. Our conversations with key political players in the campaign finance process in Illinois reveal that many insiders are equally unhappy with the role of money in Illinois politics.

Therefore, we call on Illinois legislators to consider our recommendations as a starting point for change and to approve specific legislation in the 1997 session of the General Assembly.

We exhort legislators and other political leaders to be bold in discussing this topic, the media to be bold in reporting on the flow of money in elections, and the people of Illinois to be bold in demanding change.

Our state's leaders stand at a risky crossroads, and if they take the business-as-usual path, they will contribute to a continuing deterioration of the trust and confidence of the people of Illinois in their government. The time to enact meaningful campaign finance reform is now.

We also urge concerned citizens, civic organizations, associations, government officials, and business leaders (perhaps those who manage political action committees) to come together in coalition to promote a serious push for reforming Illinois' campaign finance system. This is not a Republican or Democratic issue; it is not a corporate or nonprofit or union or other interest-group issue. It is a problem the Illinois citizenry at large believes must be fixed.

All people of goodwill in Illinois must demand changes, and must demand that campaign finance reform become a top legislative priority. The times demand it.

And because the role of money in Illinois politics must be monitored formally on an ongoing basis, we emphasize the importance of our recommendation for the creation of the Illinois Campaign Finance Oversight Commission. The people of Illinois must regularly be given an opportunity to evaluate the impact of money on politics and be prepared to respond to changing campaign finance practices.

The issue of campaign finance reform is not going away. There has been no significant reform in Illinois since 1974, and Illinois' reporting and disclosure law is among the most wide-open and weakest in the nation. We call on elected officials, the political parties, media leaders, organizations' leaders, business leaders, and other Illinoisans to take a stand in favor of effective and appropriate campaign finance reform in Illinois.

The Illinois Campaign Finance Task Force reached consensus on the following general concepts:

• More disclosure
• Easier, more timely access to public records by the public

Photographs by Jon Randolph

Task force co-chairs (from left) former U.S. Sen. Paul Simon and former Gov. William Stratton with task force member Paula Wolff, president of Governors State University in University Park. The other task force members were Juan Andrade of the Midwest- Northeast Voter Registration Education Project, Chicago; Michael J. Bakalis of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston; John Birkinbine of Multi-State Associates in Northfield; David L. Bennett of the Illinois Press Association in Springfield; Cynthia Canary of the League of Women Voters of Illinois, Chicago; Bob Ellis of The Daily American, West Frankfort; Samuel K. Gove of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Jacquelyne Grimshaw of the Center for Neighborhood Technology, Chicago; James H. Lewis of the Chicago Urban League; Ronald D. Michaelson of the State Board of Elections, Springfield; Helen Satterthwaite, former state representative from Urbana; and Laura Washington, editor and publisher of The Chicago Reporter.

• Contribution limits
• Restrictions on expenditures
• More election competition
• More effective enforcement
• Ongoing monitoring

The specific recommendations:

1. Create a bipartisan Illinois Campaign Finance Oversight Commission, adequately staffed and funded, with public and private members appointed

38 / March 1997 Illinois Issues

'There is a public perception that public office is
for sale. That is, in fairness, a distortion. But what
is clear, access to public office is for sale.'
Paul Simon

by the governor and legislative leaders, to monitor the state's campaign finance system and make reports to the governor and the General Assembly after each general election, identifying problems and recommending changes.
2. Eliminate the requirement that persons inspecting or purchasing campaign finance reports must sign a State Board of Elections' Form D-3, which lists their name, address, phone number, occupation, employer and reason for examining the reports. Campaign finance reports are public records, and people should be able to view them anonymously and without hassle.
3. Require that when political committees report itemized contributions, those reports must include the occupation and employer (if any) of individual contributors. The state should prohibit campaign committees from spending funds from contributions for which they do not obtain and report complete information.
4. Increase penalties for willful non-compliance and failure to adhere to stricter campaign finance laws.
5. Provide staffing and resources to the State Board of Elections at a level sufficient to ensure adequate processing and dissemination of information in campaign reports and increased oversight. We recommend increasing staffing and resources for the State Board of Elections in order to enable the board to expand the development and dissemination of reports.
6. Require all groups, unions and corporate entities that raise or spend more than the statutory threshold in support of a candidate or candidates to file the same reports that candidates file. (Currently, this threshold for candidates is $1,000.)
7. Require all candidates for legislative and statewide office who are required to form political committees, as well as all incumbents, to file their reports with the State Board of Elections in electronic form in a standard database format.
8. Maintain reasonable fees charged by the State Board of Elections for hard copies and electronic copies of campaign finance reports, and maintain the information in formats that are easily accessible in a timely manner.
9. Restrict transfers to any candidate from candidate political committees, political parties, legislative leader committees and state or local parties to $25,000 in the primary election period and $25,000 in the general election period.
10. Limit contributions from groups, corporations, associations, and individuals to political committees (including leadership committees) and political parties to $2,000 for the primary and $2,000 for the general election.
11. Restrict legislators and candidates for the legislature to establishing only one political committee per office.
12. Restrict total giving by any individual or political committee to $200,000 per election cycle.
13. Index and adjust these contribution limits for inflation every two years.
14. Provide an incentive for individuals to contribute to political campaigns by giving a state tax credit of up to $50 annually for contributions made by individuals to any state political committee or party.
15. Require elected officials who leave office due to defeat or retirement, as well as all candidates who have been defeated for elective office, to close their political committees and dispose of any remaining funds within five years after leaving office or losing an election, unless they file for another elected office.
16. Define and prohibit non-electoral expenditures and personal use of campaign funds, and empower the State Board of Elections to determine, investigate and rule on what constitutes an appropriate campaign expenditure.
17. Prohibit legislators from holding organized fundraisers in the Springfield area in March, April, May and June, during the busiest period of the General Assembly's session.
18. Prohibit successful candidates and incumbents who were not up for re-election from carrying a surplus of more than $25,000 into the next election cycle. The task force recommends that carryover funds in excess of these amounts would have to be returned to contributors or given to charity.
19. Distribute to all voters in every general election period state-funded "candidate guidebooks" containing profiles of and statements from all candidates who are on the ballot for statewide and legislative offices.
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