California political watchdog pushes bills to strengthen financial reporting laws

California’s Fair Political Practices Commission is pushing a number of bills this year aimed at increasing transparency and strengthening political ethics rules. 

“For me my priority as chair is increasing public trust,” said FPPC Chair Adam Silver. “I think we have a crisis of public trust right now.”

One bill, Senate Bill 280, would ban campaign contributions in public buildings. The commission is also supporting a measure, Assembly Bill 1029, to require elected officials to disclose cryptocurrency assets in their economic interest disclosures.

But Silver also has his eye on a slightly more niche system of political influence in California: behested payments. These are payments that lawmakers direct others to make to a charity or other organization on their behalf.

Silver gave this hypothetical example:“You have an elected official. There’s an issue in their community. Let's say the LA wildfires and they need to secure funding for a homeless shelter for people who are impacted by the fires,” Silver explained. “They go out to corporations, individuals in the community ask them to make donations to the shelter. Those payments are considered what we refer to as behested payments.”

These types of payments have increased significantly in recent years, according to data from the FPPC. Many, including those who donate through the mechanism, see it as another avenue for influence; instead of donating directly to a politician, you donate to the politician’s organization of choice.

“I think Californians really expect to know who [is] seeking to influence their elected officials and then who's benefiting from all this,” Silver said.

Sean McMorris is an advocate with Common Cause California and said he’s seen how these payments have been wielded for influence.

“It's become evident over the last ten years [that] they're being utilized in ways to curry political favor,” McMorris said. “Politicians, quite frankly, are using them to shake down special interests who they know are going to have business before them. So both parties are guilty here.”

State law requires elected officials to report these payments to the FPPC within thirty days of the transaction, if it’s over $5,000. Silver hopes to change this timeline to instead require quarterly reports and enhance electronic filing through Assembly Bill 775. He said the current system is unpredictable and burdensome for reporters and the FPPC as the enforcer.

This would mean less frequent reporting requirements for behested payments, but Silver thinks it will still be more transparent.

“Just throwing as much data as possible at the people of California, I don't think that's necessarily productive,” Silver said. “What this new reporting scheme does is it provides a calendar for the media, for regular citizens to know exactly when this information is going to come out.”

Common Cause California hasn’t taken a formal position on the bill, but McMorris agrees that a more streamlined reporting process could ultimately lead to greater transparency.

“I believe that this bill is going to increase accountability because you're putting all of these things online electronically and mostly in one spot,” McMorris said.

But McMorris added, there are additional transparency measures the FPPC could implement if it wants even more sunlight, like lowering the $5,000 reporting threshold. Overall he says more transparency is needed for these types of transactions.

“With that information through transparency, the press and the public can connect the dots and make up their own mind about what is appropriate and what is not regardless of whether it's legal,” McMorris said.