Elections watchdog asks for Daniel’s Law tweaks, more time to investigate

New Jersey’s campaign finance watchdog recommended lawmakers provide them more time to probe violations, expand reporting requirements for independent expenditure groups, and reconcile a state law that shields some addresses from disclosure with a statute requiring they be reported.

The New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission’s recommendations follow the enactment of the Elections Transparency Act last year. That law sharply increased campaign contribution limits — doubling them in most cases, with larger increases for some groups — cut the statute of limitations on campaign finance violations from 10 years to two, and preempted local pay-to-play laws, among other things.

The commission asked legislators double the statute of limitations to four years, noting that while resolutions in routine cases have become faster since the law sunset roughly 80% of ELEC’s active cases, it could lead to errors in ones involving complicated or voluminous disclosures.

“The two-year statute of limitations would be fine if all we had to do were routine cases,” said Joe Donohue, ELEC’s acting executive director. “The problem is some of these take a lot of work among our investigators and our lawyers. It’s much more preparation. Much more legwork has to be done.”

Financial disclosures from candidates and political committees vary widely in length and complexity. Local candidates, for instance, typically receive far fewer contributions than their counterparts at the state level.

Disclosures from party organizations and leadership PACs, which enjoy larger contribution limits and exemptions that allow party organizations to transfer funds between themselves, can be even lengthier and more complex.

The commission also said lawmakers should work to align ELEC’s enabling legislation — which requires the disclosure of addresses belonging to donors, candidates, and vendors — with Daniel’s Law, a more recent state law that bars the disclosure of home addresses belonging to judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement personnel, among others.

Donohue said Daniel’s Law — named after Daniel Anderl, who was slain during the attempted assassination of his mother, U.S. District Court Judge Esther Salas — was incongruous with ELEC’s reporting requirements.

“If someone comes to us right now that’s on that list and wants it removed, we’ll do it, but even then, we’re technically violating our own statute. It compels us to violate our own statute,” he said.

Few had requested their information be redacted from ELEC records, Donohue said, and full compliance with Daniel’s Law would require the commission to comb through millions of documents dating back more than four decades using a list of names that contained errors.

ELEC could comply, Donohue said, but “we’d have to do everybody.”

“We can technically hide the addresses of donors, but then what are we here for? We’re a disclosure agency,” he said. “It’s just directly counter to our purpose.”

The legislature also should require independent expenditure groups to report campaign contributions and spending within the 11 days preceding an election, as is required of all other political committees, ELEC said. Under current law, such groups are not required to report such spending until they file 20-day post-election reports.

Though earlier drafts of the Elections Transparency Act included such a requirement for independent expenditure groups, it was removed before final passage, and the commission said 39% of spending from independent expenditure committees, about $6.7 million, only became public after the election.

“We just want everybody to play by the same rules, and we just feel like that’s a gap in transparency that was created by that one provision, so it’s consistency and transparency, that’s what’s driving our recommendation,” Donohue said.

One independent expenditure group, Jersey Freedom, drew attention to the lack of reporting requirements after its 11-day preelection report showed no spending or fundraising and a $35,662 loan that paid for mailers boosting third-party candidates in the second and fourth legislative districts.

Post-election filings showed the group was funded entirely by a PAC linked to South Jersey Democrats and spent $187,066 boosting spoiler candidates. If the loan is counted as an expenditure, Jersey Freedom reported only 18% of its spending before Election Day.

The commission added legislators should mandate disclosure of local lobbying, noting nothing in state law required such influence peddling be disclosed.

“During about a decade, the marijuana industry spent about $10 million influencing the state. What did it spend locally? We have no clue,” Donohue said. “Same with wind power. Wind energy firms spent about $4 million at the state level. What did they spend locally?”