"Some political analysts have described Virginia as the Cayman Islands or the Wild West of campaign finance laws because of its lack of giving or spending limits. Others contend that Virginia’s system promotes open government and is more honest because candidates and political committees must disclose all of their financial activity. Whatever the view, one of the axioms of news coverage applies to reporting on campaign finance: Follow the money. And power follows money. ”

That’s how Pam Stallsmith began a recent Times-Dispatch column about money and politics. Unfortunately, even for skilled reporters like Stallsmith, it’s getting harder and harder to follow the money.

Virginia’s system is supposed to provide full disclosure of who gives and who gets.

Unfortunately, gaping loopholes are popping up in the disclosure laws. To no one’s surprise, Republicans and Democrats are equally adept at exploiting those loopholes. To date, state law hasn’t kept up with loophole-exploiters; as a result, what’s intended to be a full-disclosure system, without spending or giving limits, might better be described as an occasional-disclosure system. If the system’s not fixed soon, public cynicism will only worsen — with increased calls for contribution and expenditure limits that might threaten free-speech guarantees.

Individuals and political action committees must disclose donations to candidates. As a further safeguard, candidates must disclose all their contributions and all their expenditures. You’ll find this data online and easily accessible at http://www.vpap.org (the Virginia Public Access Project Web site).

But what about special-interest contributions for public referenda, such as the ill-fated regional referenda in 2003 for increased transportation taxes in Tidewater and Northern Virginia? If referendum contributors disclosed their gifts, it was voluntary — state law requires no such disclosure.

Or what about the thousands of dollars poured into local referenda for off-track betting centers? Again, no mandatory disclosure, and the Colonial Downs gaming company repeatedly refused to reveal the amounts and nature of its campaign contributions and expenditures.

The state’s top two elected officials have taken secret fund-raising to an even higher level — and, again, it’s all perfectly legal.

House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Fredericksburg, has founded a not-for-profit organization, Virginia Reform Initiative, to study transportation and other issues. As a non-profit “educational” organization, the VRI is not covered by the state’s financial disclosure laws, and will not have to reveal who donates money to it or how that money is spent.

As Howell describes it, VRI will be a think tank to come up with policy initiatives as a counter-balance to the governor’s office. “Being part-time legislators, we all have these ideas bubbling up and percolating around and we just don’t have the time or the staff to follow up on them or follow them through or see what other states are doing,” Howell said.

But shouldn’t the public know if somebody’s handing the speaker a $25,000 check, even for such a worthy initiative? If that same check is contributed to the speaker’s PAC to help elect his party’s candidates, it must be disclosed. If given to a think tank, it need not be.

On its face, the speaker’s organization is similar to the Foundation for Virginia, a nonprofit set up by supporters of Gov. Mark Warner last year to lobby for his version of tax reform. “The governor’s obviously was much more promotion. Mine’s going to be almost exclusively developing ideas. It’s a mini-think tank,” Howell said.

Research dollars? Bank-rolled candidates? In the public’s need to know who gives how much, is there a real difference?

“What we’re seeing in Virginia is kind of a financial arms race,” according to Stephen Farnsworth, associate professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington. “The Republicans opposed to the governor are trying to play catch-up by creating an organization like this. ”

“Virginia’s campaign finance rules generally are pretty loose when you compare them to rules in other states. But these organizations involve even less public disclosure, and so are a very useful way for people to contribute money without being seen. ”

But they need to be seen, whatever the bank account, whatever the expenditure.

– Frosty Landon