TOPEKA — The House Elections Committee approved a package of campaign finance reforms arising from disputes about Kansas’ definition of a political action committee, coordination among PACs and candidates, and contributions given by a person in the name of another.
The Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission, which would be renamed the Kansas Public Disclosure Commission in the bill, has engaged for several years in political and legal battles with Kansas attorneys representing activists who bristled at vague language in state election statutes and challenged constitutionality of the nine-member commission’s interpretation of laws.
DISCORD REACHED the Republican-led Kansas Legislature, which has responded by embracing changes that reduced the commission’s authority.
Josh Ney, who has represented Kansans in election lawsuits in state and federal court, told legislators House Bill 2206 would bring Kansas into constitutional compliance by compelling the commission to apply new standards to determining what level of advocacy equated to operation of a PAC and sorting out issues of coordination among PACs and candidates.
“Kansas needs to define ‘cooperation and consent’ with specificity to give reasonable notice to political actors on what activities are prohibited and what activities are not,” Ney said. “Otherwise, Kansans will be at the mercy of ‘eye of the beholder’ interpretations in enforcement actions without the benefit of prior notice.”
He said the Legislature’s work on the bill wasn’t merely an academic exercise. He said some of his clients had been on the receiving end of commission actions he equated to “lawmaking by enforcement.”
Kaitlyn Bull-Stewart, general counsel to the state Governmental Ethics Commission, said the commission’s goal was to foster public trust in state government and an integral part of that mission was the transparent disclosure of campaign finance data.
CHANGES contemplated by the House bill would lower guardrails on operators of campaigns and diminish transparency in the business of running for public office, she said.
Bull-Stewart said the legislation would allow political operatives to orchestrate money-trail transactions that sleuthing by the voting public was unlikely to crack.
“Passing funds through intermediary entities to exceed contribution limits is completely legal under this bill,” Bull-Stewart said. “This would be a major blow to transparency in Kansas.”
Bull-Stewart said the bill set the expenditure total requiring state registration of a PAC at $3,000. An earlier version of the bill contemplated a threshold of $5,000, which would have liberated 100 PACs from registering with the state and meeting disclosure mandates, she said.
The Governmental Ethics Commission has been scrutinized by the Legislature since the commission launched an inquiry into how money moved through GOP-affiliated organizations. During the investigation, the commission issued subpoenas to lawmakers and lobbyists to explore potential campaign violations related to coordination among PACs and individuals.
