34 STATES PASS CAMPAIGN DISCLOSURE ASSESSMENT --
13 STATES IMPROVE THEIR GRADES;
16 FAIL TO MEET BASIC STANDARDS
Washington State Ranks First; Virginia Makes Greatest Improvement
with Jump from "D+" to "B"
For Immediate Release: Wednesday, October 26, 2005
Contact: Saskia Mills or Kim Alexander at (530) 750-7650; saskia@calvoter.org

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Davis, CA: States across the country provided better access to candidates' campaign disclosure records in 2005 and particularly improved the usability of their official disclosure web sites, according to Grading State Disclosure 2005, a comprehensive, comparative study of candidate campaign finance disclosure laws and practices in the 50 states. Grading State Disclosure 2005 follows two prior annual reports, and is online at: www.campaigndisclosure.org

Washington State ranked number one in the country for the third year in a row, followed by Florida and California. Overall, 34 states' disclosure programs passed the assessments earning a grade of D or better, while sixteen states' disclosure programs failed. The assessment was conducted by the Campaign Disclosure Project, which seeks to bring greater transparency and accountability to money in state politics. The project is a collaboration of the California Voter Foundation, the Center for Governmental Studies and the UCLA School of Law and is supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts.

"The number of positive changes states are making to their disclosure web sites is encouraging," said Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, which produced the study. "Since 2004, 14 state disclosure agencies have redesigned their web sites, making them easier for the general public to access and navigate. This activity shows a number of agencies are increasingly responsive to the public's demand for meaningful access to campaign data."

The Campaign Disclosure Project evaluates, grades, and ranks all 50 states' performance in four campaign finance disclosure areas: the strength of campaign disclosure laws; availability of electronic filing programs; the degree of public access to campaign finance information; and the usability of state disclosure web sites.

Of the 34 passing states, eleven received grades in the A or B range, up from eight in 2004 and only two in 2003. Washington received the highest grade (A-) and rank, Florida ranked second with a B+, and California came in third, also with a B+. Overall, the study found that 13 states' grades improved, while seven declined. Among the study's significant findings:

States with the best overall campaign disclosure programs, in rank order from one to ten, are: Washington (A-); Florida (B+); California (B+); Hawaii (B); Georgia and Illinois (B, tied for 5th); Virginia (B); Michigan and Texas (B-, tied for 8th); Rhode Island (B-); and Ohio (B-).
States with the weakest overall campaign disclosure programs, all receiving Fs and in rank order from 40 to 50, are: Delaware, Nevada and New Mexico (tied for 40th); North Dakota; Vermont; New Hampshire; Montana; Alabama; South Dakota; South Carolina; and Wyoming.
Virginia was the most-improved state, climbing from a D+ to a B and from 22nd to 7th place, followed by Iowa, which moved from 38th to 31st place, and Hawaii, which improved from 12th to 4th.
Among the four grading categories, the most improvement was found in Online Contextual and Technical Usability, followed by Disclosure Content Accessibility.
"States have improved dramatically since we first evaluated their disclosure programs in 2003," said Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies. "The changes made in 2005 demonstrate a continuing commitment on the part of state disclosure agencies to further enhance access to campaign finance records, and we hope the trend continues."

Each state was assessed, graded and ranked for its overall performance as well as its performance in each of the four grading categories. States across the country performed best in the Campaign Disclosure Law category, with 40 states receiving passing grades and ten states failing. Twenty-four states passed in the Electronic Filing Program category, while 26 failed. Twenty-eight states passed in Disclosure Content Accessibility, and 22 failed. Thirty-nine states received passing grades in Online Contextual and Technical Usability, while eleven failed.

Criteria in each category were developed by the Campaign Disclosure Project partners, the project's advisory board and a panel of expert judges, who also assisted with the grading process. The project sets a high, but not impossible, standard for state campaign finance disclosure programs. In developing the criteria, efforts were made to balance the concerns of practitioners and government officials with the public's need for timely, complete and effective disclosure.

Assessments of each state were based on research of state laws as of December 2004, web site visits and research from April to June of 2005, responses from state disclosure agency staff and activists working on campaign financing at the state level, and web site testing by outside evaluators in June 2005. State grades are a reflection of not only the work of state disclosure agencies, but also state legislatures and governors, who are responsible for enacting and funding state campaign disclosure laws and programs.

Grading State Disclosure 2005 features a written assessment of each of the fifty states' disclosure programs, a U.S. map of the states color-coded by grade, comparison charts, and an analysis of campaign disclosure trends across the states, such as the number of states that require disclosure of independent expenditures and donors' occupations and employers.

For more information, contact Saskia Mills or Kim Alexander at 530-750-7650; saskia@calvoter.org

For further information about the Project's legal research, please contact: Joe Doherty, UCLA School of Law, 310-206-2675, Doherty@mail.law.ucla.edu; or Bob Stern, Center for Governmental Studies, 310-470-6590 x117, rstern@cgs.org.

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Executive Summary

A third nationwide assessment of state-level campaign finance disclosure programs has found that 34 states received passing grades, and 16 states failed the evaluation and have unsatisfactory campaign disclosure programs. Two states that failed last year moved into the ranks of the passing states this year, and one state that passed in 2004 slipped to an F in 2005. The 2005 assessment found that overall, states continued the trend of improvement identified in Grading State Disclosure 2004.

Thirteen states improved their grades from those received in the 2004 study, while 30 remained the same and seven states received lower grades. Since the initial Grading State Disclosure study in 2003, 24 states have improved their grades, and nearly every state has made some improvement in its campaign finance disclosure practices.

Grading State Disclosure is a three-year study by the Campaign Disclosure Project - a collaboration of the California Voter Foundation, the Center for Governmental Studies and the UCLA School of Law - and is supported by the Pew Charitable Trusts. The study is the first comprehensive, comparative study of candidate campaign finance disclosure laws and practices in the 50 states; the 2005 assessment presents findings from a third round of state evaluations and provides a review of nationwide and state-by-state changes over the past year.

New in this year's report are two features appearing at the end of each state's summary: "quick fix" suggests a simple modification that would improve each disclosure agency's website, while "editor's pick" highlights a feature of each state's disclosure program that is particularly innovative and/or user-friendly. States seeking to improve their disclosure websites and programs can find many best practices in online disclosure and website design among the "editor's picks".

Grading State Disclosure 2005 evaluated four specific areas of campaign finance disclosure: state campaign disclosure laws; electronic filing programs; accessibility of campaign finance information; and the usability of state disclosure web sites. Washington, which ranked 1st in the nation for the third year in a row, received the only grade in the A range. Florida ranked second overall with a B+, followed closely by California (also with a B+). Other top states include: Hawaii (B); Georgia and Illinois (B, tied); Virginia (B); Michigan and Texas (B-, tied); Rhode Island (B-); and Ohio (B-). Sixteen states received F grades.

The states that have improved the most since 2004 are Virginia, Iowa, Hawaii, Oregon, Maine and New Mexico. Although the findings reveal a significant amount of progress, less than one quarter of the states received grades in the A or B range, indicating that the vast majority of states still have room to substantially improve campaign finance disclosure for statewide and legislative candidates.

Significant findings include:

50 states require disclosure of a contributor's name and address.
28 states require disclosure of a contributor's occupation and employer.
35 states require timely reporting of last-minute contributions.
40 states require independent expenditures to be reported.
24 states have mandatory electronic filing for statewide and/or legislative candidates.
13 states offer voluntary electronic filing for statewide and legislative candidates.
13 states have no electronic filing program.
47 states post campaign finance data on their disclosure web sites.
3 states - Montana, South Carolina and Wyoming - have no campaign finance data available on their web sites.
32 states provide searchable databases of contributions online.
20 states provide searchable databases of expenditures online.
20 states publish current campaign finance overviews online.
Significant improvements since 2004 include:

1 state added timely reporting of last-minute independent expenditures.
2 states increased the number of pre-election reports that must be filed by candidates.
3 states that previously had voluntary electronic filing programs converted to mandatory electronic filing for statewide and/or legislative candidates.
1 state that previously had mandatory electronic filing for statewide candidates added mandatory electronic filing for legislative candidates.
3 states posted campaign filings to the Internet more quickly in 2005.
3 states added online searchable databases of campaign contributions.
2 states improved their explanations of which reports can be found on their disclosure web sites.
Grades were based on criteria developed by the Project partners, the Project's Advisory Board and a panel of expert judges, who also assisted with the grading process. The Project set a high, but not impossible, standard for state campaign finance disclosure programs. The grades were based on a state's performance in the area of candidate disclosure only; lobbying, conflict of interest, ballot measure and party organization disclosure were not evaluated.

Assessments of each state were based on legal research, web site visits and research, web site testing by outside evaluators and responses from state disclosure agency staff and activists working on campaign financing at the state level.

Glossary
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Accrued Expenditure - an expenditure that is not paid at the time a service is provided. Accrued expenditures are debts owed by the campaign to political consultants or other vendors for good or services such as direct mail or campaign signs.

Amendment - a correction or revision made to a campaign finance report.

Committee - an entity established by a candidate, political party or other organization for the purpose of raising and spending money and filing required campaign statements with detailed information about campaign contributions and expenditures.

Desk Audit - a review of a campaign finance disclosure report as it has been filed by a political committee. In a desk audit, documentation other than the actual campaign finance disclosure report, such as canceled checks, bank statements and vendor receipts, are not reviewed.

Disclosure - in the context of campaign financing, disclosure means making information about campaign contributions and expenditures known to the public.

Electronic Filing - the process by which political committees and candidates disclose campaign contributions and expenditures in an electronic format. Electronically-filed campaign finance information can be submitted via a web-based filing system, e-mail or computer disk. Candidates typically use either a standard filing format provided by the state, or filing software provided by the state or an outside vendor.

Field Audit - an in-depth review of a campaign finance disclosure report and other documentation related to the campaign finance report, including canceled checks, bank statements and vendor receipts, to verify the accuracy of the report.

Independent Expenditure - an expenditure for a communication which expressly advocates the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate, but which is made independently of any candidate's campaign. An example of an independent expenditure is a campaign ad run by an issue organization in support of a specific candidate for office. (Source: Federal Election Commission)

Itemized Data - breakdowns of contributions received or expenses made by a committee, such as listings of individual contributions with the contributor's name, address, occupation, and employer . (By contrast, an example of unitemized data would be when a committee reports the total amount of all contributions under $100, but does not provide detailed information about the individual transactions that make up that total figure. )

Last-minute Contribution or Late Contribution - a contribution (often large) that is received by a committee after the closing date for the final statement filed before the election, but before the election takes place. Many states require supplemental reporting of individual last-minute contributions made in the last days and weeks prior to Election Day.

Last-minute Independent Expenditure or Late Independent Expenditure - an independent expenditure that is received by a committee after the closing date for the final statement filed before the election, but before the election takes place. Many states require supplemental reporting of last-minute independent expenditures made in the last days and weeks prior to Election Day.

Loan Guarantor - a person who guarantees that a loan to a campaign will be repaid. Often financial institutions will not lend money to a candidate or campaign unless there are private individuals who guarantee that they will repay the loan if the campaign cannot.

Mandatory Review - the process by which a state's campaign finance filing agency, often the Secretary of State, is required to examine campaign statements that are filed with its office, typically either through desk or field audits.

Reporting Period - the specific time period covered by a particular campaign finance statement.

Standard Filing Format - a uniform or standard technical format set forth by a state government which committees or candidates can use to file campaign finance disclosure statements electronically. The standard format ensures that all candidates' filings can be integrated into the state's internal data system or system of Internet disclosure.

Subvendor - a third party, such as a political consultant, who makes an expenditure on behalf of a campaign. For example, when a political consultant receives funds from a campaign and purchases TV time for the campaign, the campaign must report the consultant's expenditures if subvendor disclosure is required. Credit cards can also fall into the subvendor category because detailed information about expenditures can be found in credit card statements. If the campaign only listed the credit card company in its expenditure report, the public would not know the actual expenditures of the campaign.

Subvendor Information - detailed information, including name and address, about subvendors.

Supplemental Filing - a campaign finance report that is filed in addition to regular campaign finance filings. Supplemental filings are often last-minute contribution statements, independent expenditures statements, or last-minute independent expenditure statements.

Threshold - a monetary value at or above which a candidate must disclose campaign activity. The threshold can apply to the contribution amount that will trigger a campaign to disclose detailed information about a contributor. Or, the threshold can apply to the total amount of money raised or spent that will require a campaign to file campaign finance reports electronically.

Methodology of Usability Testing

Index of State Disclosure Agencies

Grading State Disclosure Criteria

Credits