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July-August 2004

Summer records work perfect election preparation

by Charles Davis

With another dramatic presidential election season well under way, it’s worth remembering the many ways in which intrepid journalists can leverage the power of the Freedom of Information Act to cover the ballot box.

The fall will usher in hundreds of contested elections at the federal, state and local level, so in the interest of the contests to come, a little pre-election FOI work can fill the dog days of summer with projects that bear fruit in November.

Needless to say,the first rule of political reporting is always, always: Follow the money. Campaign finance has never been trickier, but reporters on the election trail have never had so many resources at their disposal. From the Center for Responsive Politics (www.opensecrets.org)to the Federal Election Commission’s voluminous data sets (www.fec.gov), contributions for national candidates over $200 can be scrupulously tracked by dozens of different methods. Most states have comparable administrative agencies with Web-based searching as well.

The Center for Public Integrity is another vital source of statistical information on contributions, lobbying and advertising expenditures across states. The center’s excellent "Party Lines" project (www.publicintegrity.org/partylines/default.aspx) analyzes the money raised and spent by state Democratic and Republican political party and caucus committees. The Center for Public Integrity built a database of party and caucus contributions and expenditures from all 50 states.

The database includes contribution and expenditure data reported to state agencies by 229 political party and caucus committees in all 50 states, during the 2001 and 2002 calendar years. The resulting database consists of more than 356,000 contribution records totaling nearly $823 million and nearly 422,000 expenditure records covering $790 million.

Using these handy sites,a reporter in any state can:

Identify the big corporate donors in the area and whom they support.
Identify the interest groups playing a major role in the area.
Track the giving of other major players such as clergy or church groups, university administrators, athletic coaches (which makes a nice sports/politics feature) and local lobbyists.

That alone would generate dozens of interesting tales of influence-peddling, conflicts of interest and outright political bribery, but while you’re at it, get creative! Why not look at the top 10 radio disc jockeys and talk show mouthpieces in your market? What about the heads of the largest nonprofits or industry associations? What are the top ZIP codes in your market for giving,and where does their money go? Where is money going out of state? You can answer all of these questions in relatively short order, and each leads to larger questions about the role of money in electoral politics.

While you are at it, don’t forget to get the expenses of the campaigns in your area. In most states,candidates can spend money any way they see fit – I came across a story by The Virginian-Pilot a few years back, courtesy of the IRE Resource Center (www.ire.org/resourcecenter) that found a candidate in one race paying himself for a campaign office, and he was running unopposed. It gets better: The candidate was a state senator who receives a monthly allowance from the taxpayers to pay for the office already.

Make the same requests from PACs and political parties and watch the stories roll in.

Also make sure to gain access to the stated qualifications of every officeholder in your market,and do some digging. A recent story on federal officials by CBS News (www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/10/eveningnews/main616664.shtml) did just that with top officials throughout the federal government, and found employees with diploma mill degrees at the new Transportation Security Administration, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Departments of Treasury and Education.

Florida State Rep. Jennifer Carroll recently stepped down from the National Commission on Presidential Scholars after CBS News reporters discovered that she listed a degree from Kensington University, a diploma mill shut down by officials in California and Hawaii. For an excellent overview of how a well-known cluster of diploma mills operates, see www.hep.uiuc.edu/home/g-gollin/diploma_mills.pdf .

Review what your local candidates list as their educational and professional qualifications, and become the watchdog. Be sure to access property records and candidate filings to double-check residency qualifications, as candidates still play fast and loose with residency requirements. Be systematic: Build a database with each candidate’s filings and then cross-check them against court records, tax liens and other documents to see what pops up. You might think that in 2004,we would be past the elections chicanery of yesteryear: dead voters, fake names and illegal voters.Nothing could be further from the truth. One of the most reliable sources of election-year stories are the electoral records themselves.

The Des Moines Register reported in February on a referendum petition:

"TV sidekick Barney Fife, missing newspaper boy Johnny Gosch and the late John F. Kennedy Jr.are among the names on a citizens petition that will force a special Des Moines City Council election this spring.

"In addition to the phony signatures,at least one resident whose name appears twice denies that she signed the petition,which was delivered this week amid debate over the $150,000 cost to taxpayers for the May 11 vote.

"City Clerk Diane Rauh also believes a few pages of signatures represent one person’s hand-writing. She already has thrown out nearly 190 suspect signatures, but petition organizers still have enough to force a vote …"

And just because your state has tough disclosure laws does not mean they are being followed, as the Fort Meyers (Fla.) News-Press reported last November:

"None of the four members of Cape Coral’s health facility authority and none of the four special masters – who hear code enforcement or unlicensed contractor cases in the city – have current reports on file with the Lee County Supervisor of Elections, according to a public records check by the News-Press. State ethics laws require the reports by July 1 annually …"

Finally,once the election is over, it’s time to calculate the cost. Get the expenditures of local and state elections officials,and look for a fresh round of impropriety, or more optimistically,the low, low cost of electoral politics in your market.

Charles Davis is executive director of the Freedom of Information Center, an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism and a member of IRE 's First Amendment task force.