The Command Post - 2004 US Presidential Election - Kerry Campaign Contributions Lack Disclosure

August 21, 2004

Kerry | Kerry Campaign Contributions Lack Disclosure

OpenSecrets.org shows that the Kerry-Edwards campaign has a 76% compliance rate with FEC disclosure provisions for campaign contributions, compared to 91% on average for congressional campaigns, and 93% for the Bush-Cheney campaign. The OpenSecrets folks track the “quality of disclosure” associated with campaign contributions, described as follows:

“BEST EFFORTS” RULES: When making solicitations, candidates, PACs and party committees must make “best efforts” to obtain and report the name, address, occupation and employer of each contributor who gives more than $200 in a calendar year. In order to show that the committee has made “best efforts,” solicitations must specifically request that information and inform contributors that the committee is required by law to use its best efforts to collect and report it.
Most members of Congress fully identify the great majority of their donors’ occupations and employers — an important point, if voters are to see the economic interests giving to their representative’s campaign.

In the 2000 elections, the average member of Congress fully identified 91% of their contributors’ occupations and employers. Seven percent of the occupations were left blank, and the rest were incomplete.

According to the current OpenSecrets data, Bush’s stats are:

Full Disclosure: $156,147,934 (93.0%)
Incomplete: $2,378,738 (1.4%)
No Disclosure: $9,309,250(5.5%)

Kerry’s, on the other hand, are:

Full Disclosure: $85,533,842 (76.4%)
Incomplete: $762,427 (0.7%)
No Disclosure: $25,619,547 (22.9%)

Bush’s 93% compliance seems quite in line with OpenSecrets’ 91% average from past Congressional campaigns, but Kerry’s number, at 76%, is wildly out of wack.

Here are the ‘Full Disclosure’ stats for the other candidates in this year’s race:

Dennis Kucinich: 91.2 %
Lyndon H. Larouche Jr: 91.0 %
Ralph Nader: 90.3 %
Al Sharpton: 91.2 %
Carol Moseley Braun: 92.5 %
Wesley Clark: 70.8 %
Howard Dean: 92.6 %
John Edwards: 87.8 %
Dick Gephardt: 89.2 %
Bob Graham: 87.1 %
Joe Lieberman: 92.5 %

(You can see a single page which compares each candidate’s disclosure statistics here.)

So other than Wes Clark, Kerry’s campaign is significantly below (by over 10%) any other candidate (even the less-than-serious-ones) in this year’s race.

I’m not a campaign finance expert, so I don’t really know what to make of this. Since the data comes from contributors themselves it isn’t clear to me whether you can really fault the Kerry campaign for the deficiency —- unless they are supposed to refuse contributions that don’t provide adequate disclosure. Campaign finance experts, please chime in here anytime…

Originally posted at The Truth Laid Bear.

Posted by N.Z. Bear at August 21, 2004 02:27 PM | TrackBack

Comments

Let me be the first to complain to the FEC that Kerry is stinking up the place by not reporting who is backing him!!! If America votes for this dumb fuck we get what the liberals deserve….a lying pompous jackass who supports baby killing, penis stuffing, and faking religiousity when he supports getting God out of everything!! Man, what a dud da dems be supportin’!! I like the 70% for Ashley Clark too….old deer in the headlights actually was a General, and promoted way way over his head!!

Posted by: dickmr at August 21, 2004 05:53 PM

From our comment policy:

As you post your comment, please mind our simple comment policy: we welcome all perspectives, but require that comments be both civil and respectful. We also ask that you avoid the extensive use of profanity, racist terms (neither of which we consider civil or respectful), and other boorish language.

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Posted by: Alan at August 21, 2004 06:01 PM

Well, I’d think full disclosure on Bush’s 5% is less important then Kerry’s 23%…

So care to guess where the MSM is going to be focusing?

How much has Soros given?

Posted by: JLL3 at August 21, 2004 06:27 PM

“Since the data comes from contributors themselves it isn’t clear to me whether you can really fault the Kerry campaign for the deficiency”

Posted by: Lakhim at August 21, 2004 08:30 PM

Sorry for the nasty post Alan. I’ll tone it down and be a better man than Harkin and the rest. I’ll tell you what is going to explode this week….since the argument seems to be heading toward a dispute on whether there was any fire when Kerry pulled his man out of the water. The proof of that will be in the action reports that show NONE of the boats had taken any bullet holes or other destruction to them!!! ha ha ha I wanna see how that is refuted and posed as Kerry being heroic in the face of imaginary fire …the fire was from the boats alongside and not hit nor from the enemy!! This is too much fun to watch the liberals squirm…I just wanna see that wussie salute from Kerry again and have him report for duty in the brig for lying about his fellow service men when he was out of harms way.

Posted by: dickmr at August 21, 2004 09:51 PM

“Since the data comes from contributors themselves it isn’t clear to me whether you can really fault the Kerry campaign for the deficiency”

Posted by: Lakhim at August 21, 2004 08:30 PM
*****************************************
If the Kerry campaign “has made “best efforts,” solicitations must specifically request that information and inform contributors that the committee is required by law to use its best efforts to collect and report it.”

Then I guess maybe they might not be defficient.

There are a few adjectives one might use about the contributors though. ;-)

Posted by: Dan Kauffman at August 22, 2004 04:09 AM

I dont know Alan, it looks like you have ran off most all of your commenters with your authoritarian threats and warnings, and your remaining handful of commenters are still ignoring your pipe dream of artificially civil threads.

There sure are a lot of threads here now with zero comments, or just Don babbling to himself. I think your brilliant original market niche of allowing “readers” to have intellectual freedom to speak their minds here has eroded to a simple day old news website.

I am sure you feel some satisfaction by cleaning up your threads to the point you can pretend to be a respectable journalist at both conventions, but what are your plans to maintain readership after the election interest dies down.

I notice Michele has had the common sense not to enable type-key registration at her personal blog. I think she may have learned from your self-righteous mistake.

Posted by: Proxy Pundit at August 22, 2004 11:50 AM

There is no excuse for profanity and disrespectful personal attacks. Neither adds anything to the discussion.

Posted by: rdelephant at August 22, 2004 04:57 PM

I contributed to the Kerry campaign in response to a post-convention fund-raising letter. The disclosure area was on the back of the form. I almost didn’t turn the page over. I expect that the explantion is as mundane as that.

Posted by: rdelephant at August 22, 2004 05:30 PM

Proxy Pundit -

“…your brilliant original market niche of allowing “readers” to have intellectual freedom to speak their minds here has eroded to a simple day old news website.”

Sadly, true.

Posted by: Jim at August 22, 2004 09:51 PM

…pleeez;I find this kind`a funny we on the right talk about personal restraint and responsibility but then use language that is exactly what the left promotes…what a tangle web we weave…and our enemies LAO…:-(((…Alan&Michele do a great job,they give you a lot of rope,the rhetoric is getting disgusting and in some cases close to libelous Imo,facts, less hate speech,the truth will set you free… thanks for you work !!

Posted by: Rob_NC at August 23, 2004 10:38 AM

Proxy Pundit:
I understand your needs for personal attacks, hypocrisy, and flaming in lieu of somewhat intelligent discussion. Here’s a good alternative site you might enjoy:

www.lying-hypocritical-liberal-scum.com

Have a nice day.

Posted by: jackhammer at August 23, 2004 11:48 AM