The Free Lance-Star: Is Virginia a “Backwater” in Terms of Campaign Finance Reform?

Virginia’s venerable General Assembly has mostly wrapped up. And though our legislature has served the commonwealth well over its more than 400-year history, our current campaign finance laws are missing in action.

Everyday Virginians across all political perspectives want reform, and they said so in a 2021 poll commissioned by nonpartisan groups the VA Chapter of American Promise and Virginia Our Way.

Conducted by the renowned Wason Center at Christopher Newport University, the polling shows that this is an area of bipartisan agreement. Nearly 80% of Virginians agree that we need to reduce the influence of large donors; 88% want full disclosure of donors.

After the most expensive election in Virginia’s history, 2022 should have been the year for reasonable, bipartisan reforms. But of the 24 campaign finance bills introduced this session, only four remain viable.

These four bills support better monitoring of campaign funds, some improvement in disclosure requirements and the continuation of a legislative study committee.

Are we a backwater? The answer is a resounding yes. Virginia is a statistical outlier on good governance legislation. And thanks to the House Privileges and Elections committee, the 2022 General Assembly continued that trend.

This House panel killed 13 common-sense campaign finance bills this session, including a popular bill, introduced six years in a row, which would have banned personal use of campaign finance donations. This bill passed the Senate and was killed in the panel on a party-line vote.

Let’s be clear; our legislators, are complicit in the demise of key campaign finance bills, like the status quo. Unlike other states, here politicians have unrestricted access to campaign funds and no limitations on how they can use them.

— Joshua Cole, Stafford