It’s one of our basic tenets. The candidate or cause of your choice. Your hard-earned money. Your decision. No one to tell you differently.
Yes, the freedom to express oneself by means of personal political contributions is an undeniable right. Unless, that is, one prefers to be private about it.
Somewhere near the vortex of such issues as First Amendment rights, the public’s need to know, and an individual’s privacy is a document called the California Political Reform Act. Now, throw into the mix the question of harassment and personal safety concerns.
Since the mid-1970s, the Political Reform Act has stood as California’s campaign finance and disclosure requirement bible. It is viewed with deadline-imposed disdain by many required to report all their campaign finance activity and extolled by those wanting to access the same details, whether or not any average members of the public (read: non-political hacks) ever once take a gander at the information.
Accommodating changing times and both public and legal sentiments, the Act has been revised and massaged over the years to include items such as campaign contribution limits, voluntary spending caps, and on-line reporting requirements (not to mention the growth of a nice little cottage industry for campaign treasurers and software licensers).
In the wake of last November’s election, Attorney Charles LiMandri is moving to significantly expand privacy considerations related to campaign contributions. Last Monday’s Washington Times, excerpted here, provides the details:
Pestered Prop 8 donors file suit
Aim to restrict campaign rules
After giving $10,000 to California’s Proposition 8 campaign last year, Charles LiMandri began receiving some unexpected correspondence.
"I got about two dozen e-mails and hate phone calls," said Mr. LiMandri, who lives in San Diego. "They were calling me Nazi, homophobe, bigot. I tried to engage people once or twice – I said that Proposition 8 had nothing to do with being bigoted, it was about preserving marriage – but people don’t want to engage on the issue."
Those e-mails are now among hundreds of exhibits in a landmark case challenging California’s campaign-finance reporting rules, which require the release of the names, addresses and employers of those who contribute $100 or more to ballot-measure committees.
The lawsuit argues that those who contribute to traditional-marriage initiatives should be exempt from having their names disclosed, citing the widespread harassment and intimidation of donors to the Proposition 8 campaign.
Read the entire article…it provides some excellent details.
The piece notes a 1970s-era U.S. Supreme Court precedent related to disclosure exemptions for Socialist Workers Party donations. Apparently, the Court wanted to protect contributors from the possibility of attack.
As for California, LiMandri may have a precedent as well, albeit a small one. When it comes to on-line dislosures (a more recent years’ requirement), candidate-controlled and other committees must also file campaign reports showing all donors and expenses via the Secretary of State’s publicly-accessible website.
However, the transition to electronic filings prompted an interesting nuance between the traditional paper reports and the electronic versions. While the paper reports include the addresses of donors, the e-filings show only the individuals’ names and cities, but no actual street addresses. Technically, when the campaign information – including street addresses – is transferred by the campaign, the Secretary of State’s software automatically “strips” the addresses from the data as it is posted for website viewing by the public.
Whatever the reason for not including donors’ street addresses on-line, whether legislatively- or agency-determined (I know Debra Bowen can likely tell us the reason), it’s as if a thought was actually given somewhat to balancing the public’s right to know with personal privacy. “Hey,” it seemingly occurred to somebody out there, “for anyone with Internet access to be able to view not only the names of every $100-and-more donor in the state, but also their home addresses, might just be a little too much information.”
Yet, that minor exception – if for privacy reasons – is nearly laughable. Give me a person’s name, their city, and a web connection. I’ll find their address.
I just draw the line at sending them special little greeting cards.
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