House reforms campaign finance rules

The House voted 96-49 on Wednesday to reform campaign finance regulations, incorporating a cap on donations to Super PACs and tweaking how much individuals and political parties can donate to candidates for elected office.

The legislation, which caps Super PAC contributions at $5,000, heads back to the Senate, where some senators have expressed more wariness than the House about the cost and fallout from a potential lawsuit.

The debate also showcased a rare four-way split among Vermont’s major political parties. Several Republicans complained that Super PAC restrictions invite a lawsuit which the state cannot win; Democrats replied that the state should lead the nation in shielding elections from what they see as the damaging influence of Super PACs.

But Progressives and independents took offense at another aspect of the legislation.

Progressives complained that caps on how much candidates can receive from a single source were too generous, making it difficult for challengers to unseat incumbents and making running for office an “intimidating process.”

Independent candidates wanted no limits on what they could receive, arguing that since political parties can bestow unlimited cash upon their candidates, they should also be allowed that opportunity.

 “This campaign finance bill seems to be a duel between PAC interests and party interests, and not about public participation,”  Rep. William Stevens, a Shoreham independent, said on the House floor.

His amendment to allow independent candidates unlimited donations from any sources died in a voice vote on the House floor. Wolcott Democrat Linda Martin, speaking for the House Government Operations Committee, said the Attorney General’s Office advised them such a move would be “laughed out of court.”

In the end, Democrats won out, approving a virtually identical bill to that which emerged from the House Government Operations Committee last week, cap and donation limits intact.

Burlington Republican Kurt Wright asked to remove the cap on Super PAC donations, calling it a “poison pill” that spoiled otherwise excellent legislation. His amendment died 49-95.

“This body just took a good bill, and made it into a costly, multimillion dollar lawsuit that we’re likely to lose,” said Wright after his amendment failed. “The language from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals makes clear why this is a mistake. May the Senate save us,” he said.

In even more dramatic fashion, Rep. Duncan Kilmartin, R-Newport City, crafted an elaborate allegory, describing lawmakers as fools in a “theater of the absurd,” paying admission for a “form of death with no dignity.” The tale eventually drew much laughter on the House floor.

Kilmartin ended with: “The House hearse passes by the streets lined with Vermont taxpayers. … The ultimate absurdity will be heard from the lips of a Supreme Court justice: Mr. Attorney General, did that Super PAC win one election? No.”

Kilmartin could be referring to 2006 questioning by the U.S. Supreme Court, where Attorney General Bill Sorrell was forced to admit that he had never prosecuted a Vermont politician for corruption. Candidates backed by conservative Super PAC Vermonters First also failed to win a single statewide office in 2012.

However, some have said that in 2012, an outside Super PAC, the Committee for Justice and Fairness, helped Sorrell beat back a primary challenge from Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan, spending over $180,000 to back Sorrell.

Using more sober words earlier, House Government Operations Chair Donna Sweaney, D-Windsor, rose to defend her committee’s decision.

“This is about policy, what we think is right,”  Sweaney said. “We’re going to hold everybody to the same standard. We’re going to put limits, $5,000 limits, on single-source contributions, to parties, to PACs and to Super PACs.

“We are limiting everyone equally, and saying we believe that democracy is better served when we have more people paying that $5,000 into the PAC, than one or two people paying $100,000, $10,000, whatever,” she said.

According to Martin, the committee learned that there were “only” 144,000 donors in the last federal election, which “kind of horrified” the committee. In a July 2012 story by Mother Jones magazine, chronicling the history of political spending, it was estimated that the 2012 Obama v. Romney campaign saw at least $1.8 billion in campaign spending by summer 2012, the highest ever. The Bush vs. Kerry campaign in 2004 saw just under $900 million in spending.

At a Wednesday news conference, Gov. Peter Shumlin backed the $5,000 cap on Super PAC donations. He called Citizens United one of the worst decisions the U.S. Supreme Court has made.

“If we have to challenge the United States Supreme Court’s wisdom, so be it,” he added.

House Speaker Shap Smith also supports such a cap, telling reporters on Friday that he thought the cap was defensible.

Earlier on the House floor, Rep. Susan Hatch Davis, P/D-West Topsham, also asked that the House simply throw out the work of the House Government Operations Committee and revert to the Senate’s version.

Her fellow Progressive Rep. Chris Pearson, P-Burlington, questioned why the House raised donation limits for House and statewide candidates, from $750 to $1,000 and $3,000 to $4,000 per election cycle, respectively, relative to the Senate’s version.

Pearson said House-approved limits from 2007 and 2008, vetoed twice by then Gov. Jim Douglas, were lower and more reasonable, arguing that not enough has changed since then to justify new limits.

The Progressive attempt was roundly defeated, 113-9.

Under the legislation approved by the House, political parties can give unlimited amounts to candidates for state Senate, House and for any statewide elected office. The Senate capped those amounts at $3,000, $6,000 and $85,000, respectively.

Ryan Emerson, spokesman for the Vermont Democratic Party, said current law allows unlimited contributions from parties to candidates.

“If what you want are fair and transparent elections, it is counterintuitive to limit the flow of resources from a publicly accountable, democratically formed, grassroots organization like a state party to candidates,” he said.

The Democratic state party, however, supports capping donations to Super PACs at $5,000 apiece. Emerson said there are important differences between grassroots and accountable state parties, and “shadowy” Super PACs, which are without public oversight.

Shumlin added at his news conference that he supports unlimited money coming from parties, saying it’s “better to empower parties, so they can at least be on level ground with these independent expenditures.”

It’s unclear if a $5,000 cap on donations to Super PACs would be the first such cap in the nation post-Citizens United, but Vermont would very probably be among the first states to make that policy decision.