From the Chicago Tribune

Democrats take a hostage
December 7, 2003
Even in a town where politicians view cynicism to be as life-sustaining as mother's milk, you have to marvel at this one. Illinois Democrats have decided to take President Bush hostage. They're blocking his access to the Illinois ballot for his re-election campaign.
The ransom: They want to slither out of having to pay more than $300,000 in fines they've accrued for breaking campaign finance rules.
Bush won't officially be selected as the Republican nominee for 2004 until Sept. 2, the end of the party's national convention in New York. But Illinois law requires that presidential candidates be certified by August for inclusion on the November ballot.
No problem, you just change the law to push back the certification date. But where some might see a quick procedural fix, Democrats saw a golden opportunity. They put up an absurd tradeoff: They would allow the president's name on the ballot only if the State Board of Elections could erase hundreds of thousands of dollars in pending campaign fines, most of which are owed by Democrats.
Political candidates are required to disclose information about who contributes to their campaigns, so voters have an idea of who is bankrolling them. Such disclosure is critically important to clean elections, and the law has to have teeth. So the law requires the elections board to levy fines for most violations of the disclosure rules.
The Democrats want to strip out the requirement, so they will be free to violate the law and the elections board will be free to look the other way.
The spectacle of lawmakers bemoaning the inconvenience of their own laws always carries some entertainment value. Sen. Miguel del Valle (D-Chicago) faced a fine of $55,000 for failing to properly disclose campaign contributions. (The amount of the fine was later lowered.)
Was he remorseful? No, he denounced his fine as "damned ridiculous." Try that line the next time a state trooper pulls you over for speeding.
But the underlying issue is serious: The law requires that candidates reveal in a timely and accurate way who is giving them campaign cash, and how much they are collecting. Politicians have to expect there will be consequences if they don't follow the disclosure rules.
The Bush ballot deal passed out of the House, but it slammed into a wall in the Senate. "Don't vote no," Senate Republican leader Frank Watson howled. "Vote hell no!"
Good for him.
Senate Republicans had reason to howl. On Nov. 21 the Democrats were patting themselves on the back for passing a significant ethics package. On Nov. 22, Senate Democrats were trying to gut the penalties for election law violations.
That law included stiff penalties for elected officials who fail to disclose, on time, how much campaign cash is being generated and where it's coming from. Of particular importance are the A-1 disclosures required in the days and weeks immediately before an election. That's when all manner of money can pour in from special interests seeking to sway the outcome. (The newly passed ethics law, unfortunately, gives the elections board discretion to ignore A-1 violations.)
Some follow the law, some apparently believe it doesn't apply to them. A January 2000 study by the nonpartisan Illinois Campaign for Political Reform and the Sunshine Project at the University of Illinois at Springfield gave Secretary of State Jesse White a "D," the lowest grade among major Illinois officials. White's campaign was levied nearly $800,000 in fines for misreporting 78 donations in 1999 and failing to file two pre-election reports.
Sure, $800,000 sounds like a hefty fine. But White appealed and the elections board reduced it to just $2,400 under a temporary amnesty devised by the board. Del Valle's fine was reduced to a paltry $5,190.
So many Democrats have already escaped hefty fines. And yet they're still whining that the law puts a terrible burden on them when they thumb their noses at the disclosure rules.
If there is a legitimate case for revisiting the schedule for fines, that should be debated on its own. But it is nothing but crass politics to tie this to the matter of whether Illinois voters will see the president's name on their ballot.
Illinois elected officials should not be able to spend a dime they failed to properly report under campaign disclosure laws. Violators should be fined to discourage them from avoiding the law. And the General Assembly should reject any attempts to make the punishment optional.Copyright (c) 2003, Chicago Tribune