On the face of it, H1042 looks like good policy. It appears to require candidates for office to account for EVERY DIME their campaign takes in. If a person gives you ONE DOLLAR, you need their name, address, and occupation for your campaign report.

Some may complain: “Why do this for one dollar? You’re not really buying any influence with one dollar are you?”

(Considering some of the whores we have running around here in campaign season, I’d bet you could get at leastONE of them to sell out — or even outright STEAL — for ONE DOLLAR.)

This is a nice start to campaign finance reform. But there are other areas that need some attention. There needs to be some legislation cracking down on people clearly living off of their campaign funds (Yes, we’re looking at YOU, Kelly Hastings.). One of the most egregious offenders out there happens to be a primary sponsor of H1042: Mr. Jason Saine.

If you look at campaign finance reports, you see that campaign kitties are mostly stocked by lobbyists, PACs and other folks with interests before the legislature. There are all kinds of gift bans and limits in place. It is frowned upon for a lobbyist to give a gift to a politician or to buy him dinner. But it is winked and nodded at to give said politician a big check for his campaign kitty that he can deposit and then turn around and buy himself dinner, a vacation, or other nice gift with. (Talk about Downy®-fresh money!)

One man’s bribe is another man’s “campaign contribution.” (Those $5000 contributions from “homemakers” who just happen to share a last name and mailing address with a lobbyist just *crack me up*.)

Some great legislation would involve limiting campaign spending to honest-to-God campaign needs (signs, ads, stickers, t-shirts, etc.). Also, there needs to be some documentation for this spending. If I charged $19,000 worth of, um. “clothing” to my business, you can bet your bippy that the NC Department of Revenue and the IRS are going to want to see receipts.

This bill is NOT good policy. It is intended to harass small contributors and those candidates who seek to raise money from them, and it is authored by politicians with their fingers deep in the pockets of the special interests so they do not need to raise money from small contributors.

The reform of election reports that is needed is to disallow expenditure reports of lump sums to consultants without detailing the ultimate recipient of the money from the consultant. Lumping expenditures together that way hides much from the public and should not be allowed. The only expenditures to consultants that should be allowed are those for the consultant’s own services, not the money passed on to printers, radio stations, TV stations, mail houses, etc. The final recipient should be reported for the latter.