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21 January 2012

Break up political practices, move campaign finance to SecState

When news of Dave Gallik’s departure as Montana’s Commissioner of political practices broke, I favored keeping political practices in a single operation, but led by a commissioner, such as a professor of law, without close partisan ties.

That would help, but my thinking has evolved over the past week. I now believe that CPP should not exist as a single agency; that its functions should be split between Montana’s Secretary of State and Montana’s Attorney General.

I would move managing campaign finance reports to the Secretary of State’s office, move enforcement of campaign laws to the Attorney General’s office, and eliminate the position of commissioner of political practices.

Managing campaign finance reports is not a difficult task, although it’s a tedious and fairly opaque task when the system is paper based, as it is now. Montana needs to switch to an all electronic online system of campaign finance reporting, and, as urged by the Helena Independent Record, to do it yesterday.

Switching to electronic campaign financing does not pose significant technical problems. It’s a database operation with, compared to many existing online databases, comparatively few fields and records. A smart high school student could design the system, but that’s not necessary as I’m sure off-the-shelf solutions exist. The Secretary of State’s office has plenty of experience with collecting and organizing data, so it’s the logical agency tok manage campaign finance reports.

If the problem isn’t technology, what is it?

Politics. To more precise, it’s politicians, in particular legislators. I think some legislators are simply technology averse, some are penny wise and pound foolish, and others prefer not to make it easier for good government advocates and political opponents to analyze campaign finances. When it comes to campaign finance and campaign practices laws, most legislators and party leaders seek political advantage, not the transparency sought by reformers. That won’t change unless Montana’s citizens — as individuals and organizations — and news media apply enough heat to melt the establishment’s iron resistance to reform.

Montana’s news media, and to a lesser extend, Montana’s blogosphere, have a vested — and obvious — interest in realtime online reporting of campaign finance information. They have the resources to investigate the issue, to put every elected official and potential elected official on record. They need to beat the drum for change on their editorial pages, and to beat it long and loudly.