[I]n a packed committee room on Friday, the House Committee on Government Operations heard testimony about a bill to limit the influence of corporations on Vermont politics.
Introduced in 2017 by Sen. Anthony Pollina, P-Washington, and approved by the Senate in March, S.120 amends Vermont’s campaign finance laws to eliminate direct contributions from corporations and partnerships to political candidates or parties. The bill would rewrite Vermont campaign laws to ensure “only an individual, a political committee, or a political party may make a contribution to a candidate or a political party.”
Pollina said in an interview on Friday that Vermont’s campaign finance laws need to be updated continually, to ensure that “the voices of citizens are still heard.”
“Because Vermont is a small state, people believe big money doesn’t have that much influence,” Pollina said, citing expenditures by the beverage industry to oppose the tax on soft drinks as an example of “big corporate” money’s influence in the state.
In its current form, S.120 leaves intact existing limitations on single-source campaign contributions, which are $1,000 for state representatives and local officials, $1,500 for state senators and $4,000 for state officials like the governor and state treasurer. The state also set campaign spending limits in 1997, but the the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the limits unconstitutional in 2006.
“The unfortunate thing is that constitutional decisions have been reached that limit what we can do to get money out of Vermont campaigns,” Rep. John Gannon, D-Windham, said in an interview.
BetsyAnn Wrask, counsel to the Legislature, pointed out to committee members that S.120 does not restrict contributions to political action committees.
“Many of us in the room received scads of emails and phone calls basically saying ‘Keep corporate money out of our life here in Vermont,'” Rep. Maida Townsend, D-Chittenden, who is chair of the House Committee on Government Operations, said referring to the bill’s failure to prevent corporate money from flowing to candidates through PACs.
Deputy Secretary of State Chris Winters warned of the need for a thorough analysis of the bill “so we don’t force those contributions into other channels, including darker and less transparent channels.”
“Direct corporate contributions that have been prohibited in federal campaigns have simply been rerouted,” added Winters.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate James Ehlers, who sat in on the committee’s testimony in support of the bill, said in an interview that bill “does make it more difficult” for corporations to influence elections.
“Corporations would have to do a lot of work to bundle money,” he said.
Political action committees that raise or spend $1,000 or more on Vermont politics are required to register with the Vermont secretary of state. Candidates, political action committees and parties also are required to file campaign finance reports, disclosing sources of contributions. Eleanor Spottswood, providing testimony from the Vermont attorney general’s office, said that while the attorney general is legally responsible for prosecuting violations of campaign finance laws, the onus of reporting violations falls on citizens.
Gannon said disclosure requirements also need strengthening. He pointed out that were a corporation to donate money to a national PAC, which then gave money to a Vermont PAC, Vermonters would have no way of identifying the original corporate source of the money listed in the Vermont PAC’s campaign finance reports.
“Part of it is what we choose as candidates to do,” said Gannon. “So if somebody chooses to take money from a political action committee or a party, why shouldn’t they have the requirement to do the digging to find out where that money truly came from?”
Winters said public financing of political campaigns is the secretary of state-endorsed answer for reducing the reach of corporate money in campaigns. In Vermont, only candidates running for governor and lieutenant governor can seek public financing. The committee asked Winters for more information about public campaign finance programs in other states, such as Maine and Connecticut.
Rep. Cindy Weed, P/D-Franklin, said in an interview that the bill highlighted the need for public financing to “take care of corporate donations and make elections fair for the voters and for the people running. “
Pollina, the bill’s sponsor, said Vermont may not be ready for extensive campaign public finance reform. He also acknowledged that some may feel the bill doesn’t go far enough.
“When it comes to those reforms in trying to stop contributions or stop the influence of big money, you just have to do the best you can,” said Pollina.
The House Committee on Government Operations will take further testimony on Wednesday from VPIRG and Legislative Counsel BetsyAnn Wrask. The committee will also take testimony on H.828, a bill sponsored by committee members Gannon and Townsend that would strengthen disclosure rules, requiring candidates, individuals and other organizations who pay for social media ads to identify themselves.