Election finance laws in Utah garner a D-

But state Rep. Mike Veon, Pennsylvania House Democratic Whip and treasurer of the national Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said a contested state House race there runs between $700,000 and $1 million per candidate every two years. The DLCC will spend around $10 million in targeted legislative races across the nation this fall. Alex Johnson of the Republican Legislative Campaign Committee said his counter-DLCC group will spend about $5 million.

Room for improvement

With such huge legislative fund raising and spending going on, it is understandable that campaign finance disclosure is important business in the larger states, as was pointed out Wednesday in one NCSL session.

Utah has some of the most liberal campaign finance laws in the nation, a study by the California Voter Foundation found in 2003. It ranked 33rd out of 50 states in disclosure, getting the barely passing D- grade, Robert Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, told a morning meeting.

In one job or another, Stern has been helping states and cities write campaign finance/ethics laws for 30 years.

"No one can write a perfect campaign disclosure law," he said.

The bad news is that most states aren't even close to one. The good news, there is real opportunity for improvement.

Utah falls short in a number of areas, the study shows. The biggest failing, said Stern, is that candidates for Legislature, governor and other state offices don't have to list their contributors' employers or employment title.

"So you get $1,000 from John Jones in L.A. What does that mean?" Know the employers and job title, and you can follow special interest money, maybe even discover illegal doings the candidate himself may not know about, he said.

In a recent Los Angeles City Council election, a campaign intern noticed that a gardener and other lower-income people all gave a councilman $500 in one day. Through information on the contribution list, she contacted the people, asking why the relatively large contribution — the largest allowed by an individual under city ordinance.

She found out that bosses of a Taiwanese hotel firm which wanted a zoning change for a new hotel had walked the street giving $525 in cash to people and asking them in turn to donate $500 to the council candidate. The result: an $896,000 "campaign money laundering" fine for the hotel firm, Stern said.

Utah's loopholes

Under Utah law, state candidates can accept any amount of money from anyone, including businesses, PACs and unions, and spend the money any way they wish, even give it to themselves if they want.