My post on the failure of Republican Keiko Orrall’s campaign to comply with Massachusetts campaign finance law – specifically, OCPF’s guidance for online donations – left me wondering … how many MA legislators actually do this right?
The answer: not very many, at least on the Republican side.
Of the 36 Republicans in the MA legislature (32 in the House, 4 in the Senate), I could find websites for 24 of them that accept online donations (a few legislators have no website at all, others have websites that don’t take donations). Based on my analysis, a paltry 5 websites accept online donations properly, for a compliance rate of 5/24 or 21%. Embarrassing. Experienced campaign finance attorney Dan Winslow, as expected, gets it right – perhaps he could hold a seminar for Republican legislators on how not to screw this up. Detailed results are on the flip.
Fair warning to Democrats: I did not survey all the Democratic websites because there are too many of them. However, I did look through the websites for those Dems in leadership positions, and I found failures there as well. My guess is that there are plenty of other Democratic legislators’ websites that get it wrong. The easy solution for Democrats: use ActBlue, as several Democratic legislators already do. It’s easy, it works really well, and they take care of compliance for you. Sadly, though, Republicans will have to figure it out themselves.
To briefly review the rules (there is a more detailed discussion in my Keiko Orrall post): OCPF has issued detailed guidelines explaining the rules for “web sites that solicit political contributions by credit or debit card” in Massachusetts. Basically, OCPF requires that a campaign “set forth appropriate questions, which require an affirmative response from a contributor,” regarding the amount and true source of the donation, and that the contributor is personally responsible for payments on the credit card being used. The use of PayPal presents special problems, which OCPF has addressed separately, requiring that a campaign “use their own website to screen contributions and obtain the required information before allowing a contributor to proceed to the Paypal page to actually make a contribution,” and also prohibiting campaigns from accepting non-credit/debit card donations via PayPal (that is, PayPal may be used to process credit and debit cards, but not to route money directly from a bank or PayPal account).
As noted above, I looked for websites for every Republican state rep or senator in Massachusetts. The following table summarizes the results. Please note that the compliance assessments are my own, do not constitute legal advice, and may be in error – if you find a mistake, please let me know and I will happily update the table.
Name | Accepts online donations? | Appears to comply with OCPF rules? | Comments (these assessments reflect my personal opinion) |
HOUSE | |||
Paul Adams | Yes | NO | Accepts PayPal without proper screening; allows PayPal account donations. Not his first OCPF issue. |
F. Jay Barrows | Yes | NO | Accepts PayPal without proper screening; allows PayPal account donations. |
Richard Bastien | Yes | YES | |
Matthew Beaton | Yes | NO | Accepts PayPal without proper screening; allows and actually encourages PayPal account donations. |
Nick Boldyga | Yes | NO | Accepts PayPal without proper screening; allows PayPal account donations. |
Angelo D’Emilia | Yes | NO | Accepts PayPal without proper screening; allows PayPal account donations. |
Vinny deMacedo | No | ||
Geoff Diehl | Yes | NO | Accepts PayPal without proper screening; allows PayPal account donations. |
Peter Durant | Yes | YES | |
Ryan Fattman | Yes | YES | |
Kimberly Ferguson | Yes | NO | Screens, but allows PayPal account donations. |
Paul Frost | No | ||
Susan Gifford | No | ||
Sheila Harrington | Yes | NO | Accepts PayPal without proper screening; allows PayPal account donations. |
Brad Hill | No | ||
Steven Howitt | Yes | NO | Accepts PayPal without proper screening; allows PayPal account donations. |
Donald Humason | No | ||
Randy Hunt | Yes | NO | Screens, but allows PayPal account donations. |
Brad Jones | No | ||
Kevin Kuros | Yes | NO | Accepts PayPal without proper screening; allows PayPal account donations. |
Steven Levy | Yes | NO | Does not screen properly before accepting credit cards. |
Marc Lombardo | Yes | NO | Accepts PayPal without proper screening; allows PayPal account donations. |
James Lyons | Yes | NO | Accepts PayPal without proper screening; allows PayPal account donations. |
Shaunna O’Connell | No | ||
George Peterson | Yes | YES | |
Elizabeth Poirier | No | ||
George Ross | No | ||
Todd Smola | No | ||
David Vieira | Yes | NO | Accepts PayPal without proper screening; allows PayPal account donations. |
Daniel Webster | Yes | NO | Accepts credit cards without proper screening; includes donation amounts greater than $500 |
Daniel Winslow | Yes | YES | |
Donald Wong | Yes | NO | Accepts PayPal without proper screening; allows PayPal account donations. |
SENATE | |||
Bob Hedlund | No | It appears that Sen. Hedlund wants to take online donations; however, his website is misconfigured, so the “donate” link does not point to the proper page. 😀 | |
Michael Knapik | No | ||
Richard Ross | Yes | NO | Accepts PayPal without proper screening; allows PayPal account donations. |
Bruce Tarr | Yes | NO | Accepts credit cards without proper screening. The brucetarr.com site appears to be under construction, so perhaps compliance is a work in progress; for now, though, it counts as a “no.” |
I’d say that 5 for 24 is a pretty poor showing by the state GOP. As noted above, I did not examine every Democratic legislator’s website; that would take all week, and I have better things to do. I did look for websites maintained by the Democratic leadership of the House and the Senate. Perhaps fortunately for them, most of them either don’t have websites at all, or have websites that don’t accept online donations. However, at least one prominent member of the Democratic leadership has a website that appears to accept credit cards without asking the proper screening questions, and therefore appears to be out of compliance with OCPF regulations. *cough* Charley Murphy *cough*
Again, my recommendation to all Democratic legislators is simple: if you want to accept online donations, use ActBlue, and your problems will be solved. To Republicans, well, you could start by asking Dan Winslow for advice. I’m sure his hourly rate is very reasonable. 😉
dan-winslow says
Why just take David’s word for it? You can personally test my compliance with state campaign finance law by clicking on the “Donate” link at http://www.danwinslow.com and sending a contribution to support my reelection campaign. If you want to maximize the value of your donation, consider joining me and former NFL players from the Pats, Jets, Bears and Seahawks after work next Tuesday, September 20 for Beer Pong & Politics (ABCC compliant, David) at the Alley at Battery Park in the Financial District. Open beer/wine bar included in the admission price for the first hour, great tunes, cool people. Only $25 for a $100 ticket when you purchase online at http://goodtwo.com/funds/fund.aspx?id=5844
David says
I offer no opinion whatsoever on the propriety of using campaign donations for admission to events that feature Beer Pong. 😀
Bob Neer says
Rep. Winslow should be commended for his liberal interpretation of the great sport of Ping Pong and the definitional (since 1933, when freedom-loving Democrats — the Party of Freedom — ended prohibition) American pastime.
Steve Stein says
Eldridge and Benson both use ActBlue. Benson also solicits contributions by mail, but says to include your employer and occupation.
JimC says
n/t
hesterprynne says
…for Reps Diehl and Lombardo. If re-elected, they may have to repeat freshman year.
Ryan says
I’m not going to knock off too many points from the GOP or Dems on this one, though, because most treasurers 1) aren’t computer whizzes and probably won’t have anything to do with the website, even though they’re going to be the ones held responsible on this matter and 2) are volunteers who may or may not have oodles of experience in campaign finance (in which there are a lot of rules, and more every year).
I think politicians should just take this as a learning opportunity, fix it on their site, and say “oops” if they got it wrong. Campaign finance mistakes *are* going to happen and the vast majority of them are going to be honest mistakes.
So long as it’s not improper money being funneled in, and as long as it’s corrected as it’s discovered, then I think it’s a good policy to give a campaign a little break on some of these rules, at least as long as they’re giving an honest effort in the first place — ie the entire treasury of the campaign isn’t in disarray, like if a campaign wasn’t keeping track of the money and reporting who was giving what.
David says
I don’t have much sympathy. The rules, while complicated, are reasonably clear if you bother to find them. It’s fairly easy to find what you need on OCPF’s website, and if that’s too much to ask, the staff at OCPF is very helpful.
David says
that I think harsh penalties should be doled out or anything like that. But I don’t think it’s too much to ask for people to abide by rules that are pretty clear. Some campaigns obviously manage it – and not all of them are campaign finance gurus like Winslow. Honestly, if Ryan Fattman can get it right, how hard can it be? 😀
Bob Neer says
If the OCPF won’t, or can’t, enforce its regulations then perhaps the government doesn’t consider them important. We have lots of laws that aren’t enforced.
dont-get-cute says
It should be like having sex or buying drugs or something. Just mind your own business already.
Also – what’s is ActBlue’s connection to the Democratic party? Does it refuse to help Republicans? Independents? Does it help all Democratic candidates or only progressive ones or what? And why doesn’t the government simply own the whole fundraising system, make all donations go through a public version of ActBlue, for all candidates, if it’s so important for the public that it be done right? Who is ActBlue and how do we know they aren’t laundering and sanitizing and making stuff up?
JHM says
http://j.mp/qSuFP1
kbusch says
Well, far be it from me to suggest you use the Google or the Bing thing. I suggest you speculate further.
dont-get-cute says
Do they take some of the donations and buy marijuana and cocaine and alcohol? Do they have ActBlue sex parties, catered with meat from endangered species? They could, because they’re ActBlue and no one would ever suspect them of antything, they are squeaky clean.
sue-kennedy says
to the rules, are those that learned through an embarrassment in the past. The OCPF website also has a listing of recent resolved actions. The rules are there to promote transparency, discourage fraud, corruption and unfair practices, but the violators, are for the most part, honest, well-meaning folks who will never again make another mistake.
centralmassdad says
rules for the sake of having rules, which is to say a minefield that seems to function mostly as a barrier to entry.
HR's Kevin says
That may be so, but anyone who can cannot deal with “rules for the sake of rules” is not going to be able to hack being a legislator.
David says
OCPF’s rules are trivial compared to mastering what it takes to get a bill out of committee.
centralmassdad says
but an indictment of the legislature.
Rules for the sake of rules is another way of saying government running amuck– which we have plenty of here in Massachusetts.
sue-kennedy says
that the OCPF regulations were rules for the sake of having rules – then you would be brilliant and all the bureaucrats imbiciles.
But you’re wrong. The rules create transparency and a level playing field, that is free of fraud, corruption and unfair practices.
Think about it?????
Christopher says
…that make me roll my eyes.
David says
from someone who actually likes Robert’s Rules of Order?? 😉
chrismatth says
Good work on this.
Hedlund having a website at all is a big deal – for a while BobHedlund.com has just linked directly to his credit card donation page with no website around it. I guess this is better – no money for Hedlund.
By the way – a new website? I guess Hedlund might be worried about his Dem challengers this year.