Joint Ethics Committee reviews election finance

The director of the state registry of election finance reiterated to lawmakers today that his commission has limited authority when it comes to investigating campaign finances.

Members of the legislature’s joint ethics committee peppered registry director Drew Rollins with questions. One was about E-Cycle, which gave cash to lawmakers to influence legislation for a fake, F-B-I created company. Rollins says, in an instance like that, there would be little the registry could do.

“We have authority over campaign contributions and we have authority over lobbyists. But if a private citizen or a corporation gave you, gave a general assembly member money, we don’t really have any authority over it unless says wants to make the allegation that it was a campaign contribution and that candidate didn’t report it. That’s where we would come in.”

Rollins, who walked lawmakers through updates to the registry’s electronic filing system, says there are concrete steps that could be taken. The legislature could give the registry random audit authority. Now the registry only cross-references campaign finance reports between candidates, political action committees and lobbyists to see if the numbers add up. Rollins also called for authority to levy higher fines on lobbyists.

“Right now if a lobbyist doesn’t file an activities report, the maximum civil penalty they can be subject to is $750. You as a candidate can be subject to $10,000 dollars civil penalty. The maximum they can be accessed is $750. I think the board feels they’d like that to be the same as y’all’s, what we call a Class 2 penalty – where it could go to 10,000 if they don’t file an activities report.”

If the legislature votes to have lobbyists include more information on their reports, Rollins says those fields could be easily added.