Iowa's Rotten Political Disclosure Law

Every politically-oriented blog in Iowa should read this QC Times editorial:

In four clicks, you can learn that Isle of Capri board chairman Bernie Goldstein gave $1,000 to Illinois Sen. Mike Jacobs on June 30, and another $500 to the Rock Island County Democratic party way back on Sept. 24, 2002. Two more clicks on Illinois’ campaign disclosure Web site and you can see all of of Goldstein’s contributions in Illinois, or all of Sen. Jacobs’ receipts, or any other contributor or recipient of campaign contributions in Illinois.

Go hunting in Iowa for Goldstein’s contributions and you’d still be clicking. And printing. And pouring over hundreds of printouts.

That’s why Iowa got a F from The Campaign Disclosure Project’s recent assessment of electronic finance disclosure. Illinois topped the nation with an A+.

Both have Web sites to disclose information. The difference is in how the information is managed and what candidates are required to do.

In Illinois, candidates are required to submit their contributions and expenditures electronically, which makes it easier for candidates and the public.

Iowa still allows paper filing. And their entire Web system is built around those paper records. The forms are scanned, turned into images and posted on the Web. That might have been A+ work in, say, 1999.

It’s very old school in 2005.

It’s among the few areas where Iowa lags behind Illinois for public information disclosure. For court records and property assessment records, Iowa’s statewide system clicks circles around Illinois, where individual counties are pretty much on their own to embrace 21st century technology. But for campaign finances, Iowa’s disclosure system is built around 19th century principles. Iowa’s lawmakers need to fix this quickly with new laws requiring candidates to file electronically and a bit of funding to upgrade the technology.

Read the whole thing. Seriously.

Here's an example of what they're talking about: This is a campaign disclosure form (PDF, 985kb) from Jeff Lamberti's 2001 State Senate race. Open it up and see what a complete nightmare it is.

Iowa politicians aren't going to upgrade this system anytime soon. Why would they want the public to easily search and find out who's been paying them off?

We're going to guess that every political blogger in Iowa, whether on the left, right, or middle, would think that upgrading Iowa's political disclosure law to embrace technology that was readily available in 1996 is a good idea.

Hello? Ed Fallon campaign? Here's something to add to your stump speech.


Update: A reader writes:

If it costs money to upgrade from pen and paper to a computerized system, why doesn't the Iowa Legislature impose a tax upon people who contribute to political campaigns state-wide?

Heh. Good point.


Second Update: The Diary Of A Political Madman has many more excellent points.