Shortly after a Virginia Senate committee voted Tuesday to defeat a invoice creating an across-the-board $20,000 cap on donations to political candidates operating for the Basic Meeting and government department places of work, the identical panel took up one other invoice that will have solely banned political donations from publicly regulated utilities like Dominion Power.
Republican senators on the committee rapidly famous that Dominion critics have put monumental sums of cash behind Dominion-averse candidates.
“I’m afraid this invoice would go away them defenseless,” Sen. Mark Peake, R-Lynchburg, mentioned of the state’s utilities.
Sen. Bryce Reeves, R-Fredericksburg, pointed particularly to Charlottesville megadonor Michael Payments, the principle backer of advocacy group Clear Virginia, and requested how Dominion might “counter” all the cash being spent in opposition to the corporate.
“Effectively, should you’d handed the invoice I had in entrance of you 5 minutes in the past, you’ll’ve countered it,” mentioned Sen. Chap Petersen, D-Fairfax, the sponsor of each payments that went down in defeat in simply the second week of an election-year legislative session.
The votes to kill the payments had been bipartisan and never notably shut, with the broader invoice setting a $20,000 cap failing 5-10 and the utility-focused invoice dying 3-12.
Members of the Senate Privileges and Elections Committees warned of unintended penalties if Virginia had been to maneuver away from its limitless, transparency-based marketing campaign finance system and joined quite a few states and the federal authorities in setting caps on how a lot cash candidates can settle for from one supply.
Virginia subcommittee on marketing campaign finance reform nonetheless failing to finish solely job
As a result of Petersen’s first invoice solely utilized donation limits to candidates and never political caucuses or exterior teams, Sen. Jill Vogel, R-Fauquier, warned it might give deep-pocketed exterior teams extra energy to dictate how campaigns ought to be run.
“It will likely be events or caucuses or exterior teams that 100% drive our messages,” Vogel mentioned. “And I want to drive my message.”
Sen. Scott Surovell, D-Fairfax, known as the subject a “very sophisticated concern.”
“There’s no query that it’s one thing individuals wish to take care of,” Surovell mentioned. “Nevertheless it’s a really huge concern that’s going to take a variety of time to unravel.”
To dedicate extra time to the difficulty, the Basic Meeting arrange a particular joint subcommittee in 2021 that was supposed to review varied marketing campaign finance reform proposals and make suggestions on what the legislature ought to do. However that physique solely met a number of instances in 2021.
It didn’t meet in any respect in 2022, and didn’t produce a report that was supposed to tell legislators on the subject for the 2023 session.
Senators who opposed Petersen’s payments additionally raised considerations about self-funded candidates, whom courts have dominated have a First Modification proper to spend their very own cash on campaigns.
“Look guys, I get it — loopholes,” Petersen mentioned. “Almost each different state within the union has limits on marketing campaign finance. We act like if this occurs Western civilization goes to come back to an finish. It’s not.”
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