I attended a training last night presented by OCPF and came away thinking that some of our laws, especially if strictly interpreted, are ridiculous in the extreme. Most of the prohibitions are absolute with precious few exemptions, but in my mind when adjudicating a campaign finance case the question that should always be asked is, “Who is really being corrupted here?” Very often I would submit that the answer to that question is nobody. As a substitute teacher I am covered by prohibitions applicable to public employees; never mind that I’m really only an employee on the days I happen to work (which granted in my case is most school days); never mind that I have no supervisory duties and am therefore in no position to pressure anyone to give money or suffer the consequences. According to the presenter not only can an employee not handle money, but cannot even tell others about a fundraiser. He even said that “liking” a Facebook post about a fundraiser can be construed as inappropriately endorsing such an event. I can see not handling the money, but if you tell me I can’t even talk about something or mention that my friend running for office would appreciate a donation how is that not an unconstitutional infringement on my freedom of speech?
On the fundraising side the presenter said that town committees have to account for every dollar even below the $50 required reporting threshold. The example used was a town committee that sold pie slices at a booth at a town fair. He said that anyone who paid $3 for a slice of pie is considered a donor and therefore the town committee is responsible for collecting the name and address of every purchaser. I can easily see this deterring people from patronizing that booth in favor of any number of other booths not required to collect that information.
In light of this information I would propose the following reforms:
- Exempt day laborers (like substitute teachers) from public employee prohibitions.
- Exempt those making under a certain amount or without supervisory duties from public employee prohibitions.
- Allow municipal employees to fundraise for candidates not on the ballot in the municipality in which they are employed.
- Allow public employees to speak freely outside of their place and hours of work.
- Allow town committees to raise a limited amount of petty cash per annum without a record keeping requirement.
- Allow public employees seeking elective office to fundraise on their own behalf, except for soliciting anyone they supervise.
While we’re at it I’d like to revisit contribution limits. I believe only individuals and official partisan organs should be allowed to contribute to campaigns and political committees. I have, however, long thought the individual limits are too low. $500 is fine for state legislature, but I would propose $750 for county races and the Governor’s Council and $1000 for statewide races.
There was already one in Lenox, but still the following upcoming:
Monday 4/28 at 6PM at Taunton Public Library, 12 Pleasant Street
Wednesday 4/30 at 6:30 PM at Marlborough Public Library, 35 W. Main Street
Tuesday 5/6 at 6:15 PM at Jones Library, 43 Amity Street in Amherst
Tuesday 5/13 at 6:00 PM at Barnstable Sturgis Library at 3090 Main Street
The target audience is Chairs and Treasurers of town committees of both parties.
The last one makes sense to me, but none of the others do. I’m all in favor of restricting who can and can’t raise funds.
It turns out I have no interest in fundraising and when asked to help it’s sort of nice to be able to use this prohibition as an excuse not to, but really, how can it possibly harm the process for a substitute teacher like me to raise money? I would also prefer to restrict limitations to obvious improprieties. There is too much potential for people with the best of intentions to run afoul of the law, and that IMO is not right in a free country. Limits on speech are especially beyond the pale. Now if you want to go all the way to public financing and alleviate the need for this at least for specific campaigns I would be OK with that too.
I looked into running for a State Rep seat recently and found that I could not be the Treasurer of my own committee. I found this odd, because when I ran for City Council, I was able to be so. I find it an odd restriction, because I don’t know why anyone would put themselves in the position of being the Treasurer for someone else, as it involves significant amounts of paperwork and managing the deposits of donations, it strikes me that you are assuming a substantial amount of financial risk and responsibility for an endeavor with little to potentially no “return on investment”. It seems to put a burden on single people running for office.
How does one justify a law that, to give one example, would prohibit a part-time lecturer (or office worker) at Holyoke Community College from hosting a fundraiser for a candidate for local office when a full professor at, say, Smith College faces no such restrictions? What is the justification for discriminating against public workers?
Advisory 11-1
I’m sure the presenter thought his direction was correct:
But the advisory states:
Advisory info is interpretation of code – so, follow the code, or the advisory?
The advisory specifically prohibits fundraising, which is exactly what Christoper said he is prohibited from doing.
None of the things listed as acceptable involve fundraising in any capacity, even the indirect capacity of “liking” a Facebook post about a fundraiser or distributing flyers for one.
Personally I agree with Christopher that some of the rules go a bit too far.
Interesting proposal. I’m a current college student at Brandeis with a good GPA trying to determine my career path. Public employee restrictions are basically why I won’t become a public school teacher or a public employee: I get a lot of self-actualization through getting involved in elections, and teachers aren’t paid well enough in the status quo to outweigh that for me. Becoming a teacher would mean that I wouldn’t get to do these things that I love, and honestly it’s society’s loss because I think that I’d be a pretty good one.
I’ve been thinking about some of these issues as they relate to journalists. I do college parliamentary debate, and I run a debate case that journalists should be allowed to get involved in politics. The big points in favor are the civic values of freedom of expression (even though employers *can* restrict, they *ought not* because of civic virtue), the right to self-actualization, and the benefits of disclosure in informing the public (I caveat that they have to disclose their contributions if writing an article about that election). The third argument is often the one that I focus on, and it’s been the Reason for Decision in most of the rounds of this case that I’ve won.
Let’s go line-by-line on this proposal:
Exempt day laborers (like substitute teachers) from public employee prohibitions.
-This seems eminently reasonable. The only possible objection that I could see is the bright line being unclear, i.e., a substitute who works basically everyday.
Exempt those making under a certain amount or without supervisory duties from public employee prohibitions.
– This would mean that employees would need to choose between a living wage and free speech, something that I don’t think you can really justify. Also, if the justification for the restriction on public employees taking a side is because they can exert influence on others to join them, then the amount that they are paid doesn’t really matter.
Allow municipal employees to fundraise for candidates not on the ballot in the municipality in which they are employed.
– Agree here. No reason why not: the public employee restriction is there to prevent undo influence.
Allow public employees to speak freely outside of their place and hours of work.
– Philosophically this makes sense, I honestly think otherwise is unconstitutional, but I also see a lot of ethical problems developing here, which is why I’m opposed to this one. Imagine a volunteer town clerk in some town out west volunteering for a candidate in the election that they then have to administer absentee ballots for. That leaves a lot of room for corruption.
Allow town committees to raise a limited amount of petty cash per annum without a record keeping requirement.
– I like your reasoning behind this. I tend to think that more transparency is good, records should be kept so we know who is bankrolling whom.
Allow public employees seeking elective office to fundraise on their own behalf, except for soliciting anyone they supervise.
– I’ve seen a couple of potentially great campaigns absolutely flounder because of this restriction, and it’s really sad (Kristen von Hoffman in Cambridge is the one that I’m thinking of). While I can see potential problems here, I think that if a person can seek office and keep their job (hopefully they should be able to) then there’s no harm in them fundraising for themselves, especially if they’re restricted from asking/campaigning to people that they know from their position.
Second to last item: I meant “I’d like your reasoning for this,” not “I like your reasoning for this.”
This one goes beyond grammar Nazi to actually changing the meaning of the sentence so it was necessary.
Regarding my reasoning, as I mentioned there is the example of selling pie at a booth. There is really no reasonable concern that I see that there will be a corrupting influence to the tune of $3 a piece. These people will in all likelihood remain anonymous including to committee officers and candidates. The reason I understand that we disclose is so the rest of us can see who might be influencing the candidate, but if nobody knows who dropped a few bucks worth of cash into the kitty nobody will know whom to favor in their decision making and thus no undue influence. Even if I stop by the booth to purchase a slice of pie and the committee chair or a candidate happens to see me and knows who I am I really don’t think someone’s going to say, “Let’s make sure Christopher gets his way on a bill coming up because he bought a slice of pie.”
Your comment on this regarding the Town Clerk goes more to the point I made about lifting restrictions OUTSIDE of jurisdiction. I actually think rules for Town Clerks in particular should be very strict, beyond even fundraising, because of their direct role in the legal process of election. If the candidate is not on the ballot in the same town as the person works that might be OK.
The issues involve legal restrictions about solicitation, venues, and who can(and cannot) be treasurers of Massachusetts political committees. Massachusetts campaign finance law does not restrict the abilities of public employees to contribute within the legal limits.
There are no problems with a town committee officer delegating such responsibilities to non-governmental employees. Such people can be committee treasurers, do direct solicitations to public employees, and provide venues.
I would presume, Christopher, that you know such people that could both directly solicit contributions and host fundraisers, within the limits of MGL, Chapter 55.
This isn’t a practical or legal issue at all, since it can be easily addressed within both the spirit and the letter of Massachusetts campaign finance law.
If that’s all it was it would be fine – find someone else to be treasurer. Even restrictions on direct solicitation are OK to some extent, though I don’t see the need for the list of who is covered to be quite so extensive. As I said in the original diary I can’t even talk about a fundraiser or “like” a post about one on Facebook at least according to the strictest interpretations. Organizations like campaigns and committees can find ways to work within the law, but it is individuals that I am more concerned about here.