JARED MILLER Star-Tribune capital bureau | Posted: Wednesday, February 20, 2008 12:00 am
CHEYENNE - The House Tuesday voted to require political candidates to submit records of their campaign contributions for publication on a proposed online state reporting system.
The vote reversed an earlier decision to make the system optional for the first few years.
The House also defeated an effort to cut the $2.5 million appropriation in the bill to $500,000, a move that officials said would have made it impossible to build the system.
"We wouldn't have been able to build a searchable database for $500,000," Wyoming Elections Director Peggy Nighswonger said after the vote.
Wyoming is one of few states without a searchable, online system to track campaign contributions. Open-government groups consistently rank the state last in terms of access to campaign finance data.
On Monday, Rep. Lorraine Quarberg, R-Thermopolis, successfully sponsored an amendment to make participation in the campaign finance system voluntary. She argued that a mandatory system would create a hardship for people who lack access to computers or the Internet but want to run for office.
Opponents of Quarberg's amendment raised the issue again on Tuesday, arguing that computer technology is widely available in Wyoming, and that a voluntary system would be unusable.
Candidates for political office are already required to submit records of their campaign contributions in writing. But the system includes immense amounts of paperwork and is unwieldy an inefficient, supporters of the legislation said.
Marguerite Herman, spokeswoman for the League of Women Voters, said it's very difficult to access campaign contributions under the existing system.
"Campaign contributions are part of the process of selecting elected officials," Herman said in a Tuesday interview. "Anything that can make that information more accessible, more transparent, is good."
The funding issue was introduced by Rep. Matt Teeters, R-Lingle, who argued that the $2.5 million appropriation was not justified in the bill.
"This deserves a higher level of scrutiny than we have given it," Teeters said.
"They have not been forthcoming" about the funding, added Rep. Kermit Brown, R-Laramie. "We just heard $2.5 million and accept it and like it."
Secretary of State Max Maxfield and his staff have proposed building the $2.5 million system largely with in-house resources. The estimated cost is based on comparative costs in other states, elections officials said.
Rep. Pete Jorgensen, D-Jackson, argued in debate Tuesday that the appropriation was approved by the state's chief information officer, who vets funding requests for state information technology projects.
Jorgensen, who earlier scrutinized the bill as a member of the House Appropriations Committee, said $2.5 million is a reasonable sum.
"I am reasonably sure in my mind as a member of the Appropriations Committee that they won't spend the entire amount, they will justify the spending, and we will end up with a system that works," he said.
Even Quarberg argued in favor of the full appropriation.
If the state is going to build a system, she said, it ought to at least receive adequate funding.
"We need to give them the resources they need to have a successful system running," she said.
The bill now moves to third reading.
Reach capital bureau reporter Jared Miller at (307) 632-1244 or at jared.miller@trib.com.