Campaign finance law overhaul introduced

BOISE — Lawmakers on Friday introduced two bills that would result in a total overhaul of Idaho’s Sunshine Law on campaign finance and disclosure.

The Sunshine Law, which creates restrictions and disclosure requirements for political funds and lobbyist activities, was approved in a 1974 voter initiative.

Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane and House Speaker Mike Moyle told the Idaho Press in January that the unprecedented level of campaign spending in the last election illuminated the need to update those laws.

Moyle and Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa, introduced the 40-page House Bill 308 to rewrite the election disclosure and campaign finance laws — largely updating definitions, requiring more frequent and timely reporting, increasing some fines depending on the scale of the expenditure, and increasing contribution limits. A separate 21-page bill, HB 309, was introduced to increase lobbyist reporting requirements.

Campaign finance

The campaign finance bill would increase the limit on individual contributions to a candidate for local and legislative office from $1,000 per election (or $2,000 total for the primary and general election together) to $5,000 per election and creates an exemption on limits to campaign contributions if spending in oppositions hits certain thresholds. Individual contribution limits for statewide official candidates, would go from $5,000 to $10,000 in each election.

Crane said last week that he’s unsure if he’s “comfortable” with that new limit, but the idea was to “give more power to the individual” because PACs can collect and spend an unlimited amount.

McGrane said the current individual contribution limits were set in 1995 and haven’t been updated since.

The bill would also include more timely reporting requirements for independent expenditures — which is spending by a political action committee, done independently from a campaign, to support or oppose a candidate or measure.

Crane, who is chairperson the House State Affairs Committee, told its members last week he intended to hold off on a public hearing on the bill for two weeks to give lawmakers time to review the bill.

“I want to make sure that it percolates,” Crane said. “I’m going to ask our caucus chairman that we are able to discuss this in caucus, I would also ask the minority party to do the same, and during that two-week time period, we would have an opportunity to see if we have got this right.”

Crane said that in his 19 years as a legislator, he’s seen the “monetization of politics” trickle up, and that it “culminated last year” during the primary election.

McGrane told the Idaho Press on Monday that the bill completely restructures the law, because the current code is confusing and difficult for people to find which rules regulate what actions.

The new law is separated into five parts: provisions of general application that defines terms like candidate, electioneering communication, and independent expenditure; candidates; political action committees; other persons required to report; and administration and enforcement.

Some of the changes would clean up the code language — such as putting into code that campaigns need a dedicated bank account that doesn’t commingle campaign contributions with other funds — and would be major shifts to current practices.

One of those changes would create a new exception on contribution limits if enough money is spent in opposition to that candidate. For legislative, judicial and local government races, an aggregate of $50,000 in independent expenditures in opposition to a candidate would trigger the exemption, meaning that candidate would be allowed to accept further contributions to respond.

For statewide offices, the threshold would be $100,000 or more, and $250,000 for a gubernatorial race.

“The focus is really on these attacks,” McGrane said.

In the 2024 primary, Moyle’s campaign saw nearly $189 million in independent expenditures opposing him. Former longtime Senate leader Chuck Winder had more than $107 million spent in opposition to him, and Winder lost that race.

The bill would also bring up the timeline for reporting independent expenditures, requiring reporting within 48 hours of expenditures of $1,000 or more in an election year. If an expenditure of at least $1,000 is made within 16 days of the election, reporting would be required within 24 hours.

The time limit would start either when the expenditure is paid, or when the expenditure’s product is publicly distributed, whichever is earlier.

The penalties in the bill would add a structure rather than a flat fine. Currently, fines for failure to report expenditures are limited to a maximum of $250 for a candidate and $2,500 for political committees, regardless of the size of violation. The bill would change this fine to $50 plus 5% of the monetary value of anything not properly reported.

The bill sets late fees for filing reports to $50 plus $10 per day up to a maximum of $1,000.

For all other violations under the bill, the fine is set at $2,500 plus 5% of the monetary value of any related expenditure. The penalty would be a misdemeanor crime for knowingly violating the requirements.

Fines would double when violations occur between 60 days before the election and 30 days after the election.

The secretary of state would be required to publish all delinquent accounts on the campaign finance website, and after 60 days the secretary of state may refer unpaid accounts to the attorney general for collection.

Lobbying

The lobbyist reporting bill would separate out the regulations around lobbying activities into another section of code — currently the requirements are in the same section as other campaign finance regulations.

The bill adds “indirect lobbying” and “education” related to policy matters to the lobbying definition and reporting requirements.

Registered lobbyists are currently required to report lobbying activities monthly; the bill would set that requirement to weekly reporting during the legislative session, and within 48 hours if the lobbyist spends at least $1,000 on something other than food.

The bill also adds a disclosure requirement to add a “paid for” statement on materials and communications sent by a lobbyist or organization with a registered lobbyist.

HB 308 and HB 309 will likely return to House State Affairs for a public hearing within a couple weeks.

Guido covers Idaho politics for the Lewiston Tribune, Moscow-Pullman Daily News and Idaho Press of Nampa. She may be contacted at lguido@idahopress.com and can be found on Twitter @EyeOnBoiseGuido.