Tag Archives: campaign finance

Guest Post: Despite Serious Flaws, U.S. Safeguards Against Political Corruption Can Serve as Model for the World

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Today’s guest post is from Scott Greytak, the Director of Advocacy at Transparency International US.

As much of the world converges on Atlanta for the 10th Session of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) Conference of the States Parties (CoSP), the urgent need for a renewed, reinforced, and relevant global anticorruption framework takes center stage. Among the most important issues to address concerns political finance transparency, an issue that the current version of the UNCAC does not directly cover. The United States is well-positioned to provide leadership on this issue. While U.S. laws on money in politics have failed to keep pace with America’s evolving political dynamics, aspects of these laws nevertheless can and should serve as inspirations for much of the world as it struggles with political corruption. The CoSP presents a chance for the U.S. to share its experiences and lessons learned with other countries, and to support resolutions and amendments to include commitments on political finance transparency in the UNCAC itself.

Suggesting that the U.S. can be a leader or a model on the issue of regulating money in politics may sound surprising. My colleagues and I at Transparency International US are all too aware of the many failings of American democracy, including the American approach to political finance regulation. More than in any other major developed country in the world, for example, people in the United States believe that rich people buy elections, and U.S. political finance laws are in urgent need of updating, to address persistent problems like the influence of “dark money” in elections, and the need for adequately funded public financing programs for political campaigns. But comparatively speaking, some pieces of the U.S. legal framework can serve as a useful benchmark. For instance, a survey by the Global Data Barometer Political Integrity Module and the International IDEA’s Political Finance Database revealed that of 181 countries surveyed, 100 do not have any limits whatsoever on how much money can be given to a candidate for office. In contrast, the United States has comprehensive contribution limits for candidates, political parties, and traditional political action committees (even though such limits are infamously absent when it comes to “independent” expenditure committees, or Super PACs). Emphasizing this best practice, among others, on the global stage in Atlanta could help jumpstart a much-needed exchange and collaborative approach that could raise the bar for all democratic and emerging-democratic countries.

To this end, the United States should support resolutions and amendments that require countries to enact and enforce laws that disclose campaign contributions to candidates and political parties, as well as expenditures made by those candidates and parties, in a timely and publicly accessible fashion. The U.S. can also support requirements that countries to establish and appropriately fund independent oversight bodies that monitor political spending and enforce political finance laws. The U.S. delegation can support protections for whistleblowers who call out political finance violations and can urge countries to expressly commit to sharing information, best practices, and resources in fulfillment of these commitments, and to engage with civil society closely and consistently when developing and implementing these measures.

Amidst yet another year of increasing global political unrest and accompanying anxieties, successful examples of U.S. laws can and must serve as inspirations to others. In an era of seemingly limitless challenges to democracy in all regions of the world, it is this collaboration and commitment that can fortify its foundations. A first step can and must be taken by the U.S. in Atlanta.

The Sometimes Grubby World of Political Fundraising

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The recent bribery charges levelled against New York City Building Commissioner Eric Ulrich remind of the corruption risk the private financing of political parties and candidates creates.

Ulrich raised money for Eric Adams’ successful campaign for New York City Mayor, and after his election Adams appointed him to a position in the city’s Department of Buildings. As the New York Times explained in its story on the charges, “the department regulates the construction and real estate industries, issuing permits, licensing contractors and policing construction safety and the city’s building code, and thus can have a significant impact on development.”  According to the indictment, Ulrich accepted more than $150,000 in bribes in return for granting licenses and permits.

The corruption risk private campaign financing creates arises from candidates’ search for money to win their election. One needs lots of money to get elected Mayor of New York (Adams’s raised more than $9 million.) That in turn requires people willing to help raise it from friends and associates. Some help knowing that if the candidate they are helping wins, they can use the relationship they have developed with the candidate and senior campaign staff to make money. 

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Guest Post: Curbing Political Finance Abuse in Moldova

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GAB is pleased to welcome this post on political finance in Moldova by the Independent Anti-Corruption Advisory Committee. Established by reformist President Maia Sandu in 2021, the committee reports regularly on Moldova’s progress in curbing corruption and what more needs to be done. Thanks to its members expertise and their independence, its work carries great weight — both within Moldova and the international community.

The most recent report addresses perhaps the most challenging issue any democracy faces: enforcement of the rules governing contributions to and expenditures by political candidates and political parties. A challenge all the greater in Moldova as post-Soviet oligarchs have yet to be fully tamed and Russia continues to pour black money into campaigns to strengthen anti-Ukraine, pro-Russian candidates.

The report is here, the committee’s summary below.

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Full Disclosure of Donations to Intra-Party Political Campaigns: An Anticorruption Imperative in South Africa

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In South Africa, the Political Party Funding Act (the PPFA) regulates campaign donations and expenditures to political parties. By imposing various limits and transparency requirements, the PPFA—which is overseen by South Africa’s Electoral Commission—is supposed to prevent corruption and other forms of undue influence that campaign donors may seek to exert over officeholders. But South Africa’s political campaign financing laws contain a significant loophole, one that arises due to an unusual feature of how appointments to the executive branch of government work in South Africa. In contrast to many other jurisdictions, in South Africa members of the incoming governing coalition who seek appointment in the executive branch (including the president) engage in hotly contested intra-party political campaigns, and these campaigns are also funded through donations. Until recently, not only were donations to these intra-party campaigns not regulated by the PPFA, but they did not have to be disclosed under the Executive Ethics Code (Ethics Code). This potentially opened the door for corruption and influence peddling, with millions of dollars funneled to campaigns of South African politicians who sought positions in the executive branch.

For instance, President Cyril Ramaphosa’s 2017 intra-party political campaign (the “CR17 campaign”) to become president of the African National Congress (ANC) and, eventually, South Africa, received an estimated US$20 million in donations. It was subsequently uncovered that US$37,000 had been donated by a corrupt entity formerly known as Bosasa. Bosasa was notorious for making exorbitant donations to the ANC as a quid pro quo to secure significant contracts from the ANC-led government (see here and here). While it remains to be proven whether the allegations that Bosasa’s donation to the CR17 campaign was nefarious, or whether Ramaphosa personally benefited from donations made to his campaign, the non-disclosure of these and similar donations raises serious risks.

Recently, however, the Constitutional Court held that the Ethics Code in its current form is unconstitutional insofar as it fails to require disclosure of all donations made to intra-party political campaigns. The Court reasoned such non-disclosure deprived South African citizens of their constitutional right to information that is essential to making informed political choices when exercising their constitutional right to vote; the Court also concluded that this lack of transparency increased the risk of corruption. The Court mandated the president cure the defect arising by amending the Ethics Code by September 2023. The Court did not, however, prescribe the precise form the amendment should take because doing so would be inconsistent with the role of the judiciary under South Africa’s separation-of-powers doctrine.

When amending the Ethics Code to comply with the Court’s ruling, the guiding principle should be, to the extent feasible, to align disclosure obligations for donations to intra-party campaigns with the obligations currently imposed by the PPFA on inter-party political campaigns. Applying that principal suggests that the Ethics Code should be amended to impose the following two core requirements: Continue reading →

A U.S. Court Just Opened a Huge Loophole in Anticorruption Campaign Finance Laws

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A New Jersey election law prohibits any “corporation carrying on the business of a bank” from donating to political parties. The New Jersey Bankers Association (NJBA), a trade group representing the interests of 88 banks in the state, challenged that law as unconstitutional. For those who follow disputes over U.S. campaign finance law, one might have expected that this case would be decided within a familiar framework: Under the Supreme Court’s well-established principle that campaign contributions are a constitutionally protected form of political speech, the restriction would only be permitted if it is narrowly tailored to advance the government’s compelling interest in preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption.

The federal appeals court’s surprising decision in this case, though, sidestepped that usual inquiry entirely. Instead, the court determined that the law in question did not apply to the NJBA in the first place. The court reasoned that the law applies only to “corporation[s] carrying on the business of a bank,” and because the banks’ trade association (the NJBA) does not itself make loans and receive deposits, the NJBA is not a “bank,” meaning the law does not prohibit the NJBA (as distinct from its member banks) from making political donations.

That reasoning is at least questionable as a purely linguistic matter. To “carry[] on” a business activity can mean both “to engage in or conduct” business oneself and “to develop [a business] beyond a stage already attained.” While a bank trade association does not do the former, it arguably does do the latter—for example, by lobbying against capital constraints that would impede the loan-making capacity of banks. But more importantly, the court’s narrow, literalist reading of the statute is inappropriate in light of its dangerous consequences for New Jersey’s efforts to restrict corruption and the appearance of corruption in the campaign finance system. The court’s ruling permits (at least for now) New Jersey to restrict banks’ campaign contributions, but allows the representative of those banks to make contributions on their behalf. That’s like saying your child isn’t allowed to reach in the cookie jar, but his friend can grab the cookie for him. This misguided decision has thus created a potentially gaping loophole, one allowing affluent industry groups to engage in campaign-related spending that would ordinarily be deemed to present such a high risk of corruption (or its appearance) that government regulation is justified.

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Guest Post: C4I’s New Index Illuminates the Need for Reform of State-Level Campaign Finance Rules in the U.S.

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Today’s guest post comes from Shruti Shah, President and CEO of the Coalition for Integrity (C41), together with Laurie Sherman, C4I’s Policy Advisor, and Stephanie Camhi, a C4I external consultant.

Anticorruption and good governance advocates, in the United States and elsewhere, have long been concerned with the potentially corrupting influence of campaign donations and other political spending on public policy. (Indeed, although the U.S. Supreme Court has deemed political spending to be a form of “speech” protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the Court has also recognized the prevention of corruption, or its appearance, as one of the few interests sufficiently compelling to justify campaign finance laws that limit such spending.) Much of the discussion of the campaign finance issue in the United States focuses on federal elections, yet concerns about the corrupting effect of campaign donations are just as important in state-level elections. State elected officials—legislators, governors, and other elected executive branch officials—play a vital role in creating and implementing public policy, and these officials decide how to spend trillions of dollars on roads, health, education, welfare, and other programs. And money continues to flow into state races in record-breaking amounts. Yet the potential for corruption—both illegal corruption and the “softer” corruption associated with undue access and influence for large donors—does not receive as much attention at the state level as at the federal level.

State-level political candidates must follow campaign finance laws written and enforced by the state, and states vary greatly in terms of the content and quality of their campaign finance systems. To highlight the variance across states in campaign finance laws, and to provide more information to voters and reformers, the Coalition for Integrity (C4I) created the first State Campaign Finance Index analyzing the campaign finance laws and regulations in all fifty states and District of Columbia. The Index assigns states scores based on several factors that, in C4I’s judgment, constitute best practices. The most important factors are as follows: Continue reading →

The U.S. Supreme Court Has an Appearance Problem: What FEC v. Cruz Got Wrong

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According to the U.S. Supreme Court, campaign contributions are a form of political “speech” and are therefore protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. As a result, the government may restrict such contributions only if doing so serves a compelling state interest. Currently, the only interests that the Court has recognized as sufficiently compelling to justify restrictions on political spending are preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption.

Though sometimes presented as a single interest, the prevention of actual corruption and the prevention of the appearance of corruption are not the same. The reason the government has an interest in preventing actual corruption is obvious. The Court has explained the related but distinct interest in preventing the appearance of corruption by appealing to the importance of maintaining public confidence in the electoral process. If a certain campaign finance activity creates the appearance of corruption, then ordinary citizens may start to view their political participation as futile, and may lose faith in the integrity of elections. Because Congress has an interest in preventing this erosion of public trust, the government can regulate campaign finance activities that the public perceives as corrupt, even when those activities are not associated with actual corruption.

At least that’s what the Court has said. In practice, however, the Court has often failed to apply the appearance of corruption standard in a way that serves these objectives. This is nowhere clearer than in the Court’s recent decision in Federal Election Commission (FEC) v. Cruz. The case concerned a federal law that prohibited a candidate from using post-election campaign donations to repay more than $250,000 of personal loans that the candidate made to his or her campaign prior to the election. The government justified this law partly on the grounds that it prevented the appearance of corruption. After all, when a candidate uses donations to repay personal loans, the donor’s contributions go straight into the candidate’s pockets; the public could easily view such payments as fostering corruption. In support of this argument, the government pointed to a public opinion poll in which 81% of respondents thought it was “likely” or “very likely” that donors who make post-election contributions expect a “political favor” in return. Additionally, the government cited an academic study that found—on the basis of over three decades of empirical evidence—that politicians with campaign debts are “significantly more likely” than debt-free politicians to switch their votes after receiving contributions from special interests.

This evidence, on its face, would seem to support the government’s claim that the limit on using post-election donations to repay a candidate’s large personal loans furthers its compelling interest in preventing the appearance of corruption. However, the Court’s majority opinion dismissed the government’s appearance-based argument in a brief passage with relatively little sustained analysis, apparently treating the flaws in the government’s arguments as self-evident. The Court’s dismissive attitude to the government’s evidence in this case indicates a worrisome approach to the appearance-of-corruption issue more generally.

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How the U.S. Supreme Court Might Undermine Longstanding Safeguards Against Pay-to-Play Corruption

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A campaign finance case currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, Federal Election Commission (FEC) vs. Cruz, could have serious implications for corruption in the United States. The essential facts of the case are these: Just a day before Senator Ted Cruz’s narrow victory in the 2018 Senate election, Cruz personally lent $260,000 to his campaign. Under federal campaign finance law, contributions to a candidate’s campaign that come in after the election has already occurred can be used to repay up to $250,000 in personal loans a candidate has made to their own campaigns, but no more. Therefore, Cruz’s campaign reimbursed him only $250,000, not the full $260,000. Cruz challenged the cap on reimbursing a candidate’s personal loans from post-campaign donations as an unconstitutional limit on political speech in violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

If Cruz wins—and he very well might—the result could be a substantial increase in bribery of U.S. elected officials. As many commentators have noted (see here, here and here), allowing a victorious candidate to have their loans repaid by private interests is a recipe for quid pro quo corruption. After all, this money goes into an elected official’s pocket, and the fact that the contributions are made after an election increases the likelihood that a post-election donor knows that the recipient will be in a position to do him official favors. But the risks that this case poses to anticorruption law go beyond the particular activity at issue in the case itself. There is a very real risk that the Supreme Court will use this case to further limit the sorts of interests that can justify campaign finance restrictions of any sort, thereby jeopardizing seemingly well-established and recognized limitations on political spending that have long been justified on the grounds that they prevent corruption and its appearance.

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How the Corporate Transparency Act Can Shine Light on Dark Money in U.S. Elections

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Last year, in an effort to prevent the abuse of anonymous companies by malign actors, the U.S. Congress passed the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA). The CTA requires certain legal entities, like corporations and limited liability companies (LLCs), to provide information about their beneficial owners—that is, the people who actually own or control the entity—in order to make it more difficult to operate anonymous shell companies for criminal purposes. Pursuant to the CTA, beneficial ownership information must be submitted to the U.S. Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and maintained in a centralized database.

Much of the fight for beneficial ownership transparency was spearheaded by anticorruption advocates, who emphasized the ways in which foreign kleptocrats and other corrupt officials use anonymous companies to hide their stolen wealth. But the CTA’s beneficial ownership transparency measures will be helpful in fighting another kind of corruption, one closer to home: the corrupting influence that so-called dark money—spending by undisclosed donors to influence election outcomes—has on the integrity of U.S. elections and American political sovereignty.

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The Corruption of Italian Democracy: Russian Influence Over Italy’s League

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Italy’s largest far-right policy, La Lega (“the League”), has long had close ties with Putin’s regime in Russia. The League’s leader, Matteo Salvini, has been a vocal supporter of Putin for years (see also here, here, and here), and in 2017 the League signed a formal cooperation agreement with Putin’s United Russia party. Even before then, the League (then known as Lega Nord, the “Northern League”) often advocated within Italy and the EU for Russian interests. Notably, while the EU imposed sanctions on Russia after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014, the League opposed sanctions and tried (unsuccessfully) to upend the solidarity necessary to keep EU sanction in place. That opposition to sanctions only intensified after the 2017 cooperation agreement: At a 2018 conference in Moscow, Salvini—then Italy’s Interior Minister–insisted that Italy would work “day and night” to repeal the 2014 sanctions. Salvini’s efforts proved unsuccessful, as he was unable to convince his coalition partners to change Italy’s stance. But the Kremlin still benefitted from the League’s vocal opposition to sanctions, as it showed that Russia wasn’t isolated diplomatically and that the West is internally divided.

The League’s long history of cooperation with Moscow could be chalked up to shared ideology and policy goals. But it appears that corruption, not policy, might explain why the party is so close with Putin.

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