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As the dust settles on the 2023 Virginia legislative elections, we need to ponder two big questions regarding federal campaign finance rules. First, Virginia has no campaign finance limits, so the amount of money spent on elections tends to continue to increase. The second one is probably more disturbing. There are no restrictions on how campaign funds can be used, including how they can be used for personal expenses.
The sheer scale of spending in the 2023 election highlights the urgency of passing legislation in the next General Assembly that limits the amount of money in Virginia politics.
The 2023 House of Representatives and State Senate campaigns have collectively raised more than $158 million, according to a November report by the Virginia Public Access Project and The Associated Press. This is a nearly 31% increase from four years ago ($121 million) and a staggering 110% increase from the 2011 Congressional election ($75 million).
The introduction of reasonable limits on donations from individuals, businesses, political action committees, and political party committees is long overdue.
Last year, then-Dell. Schuyler VanValkenburg limits individual amounts to $40,000 for gubernatorial or party committee candidates, $30,000 for state senate candidates, and $20,000 for House of Delegates or PAC candidates. submitted a bill to do so. The bill did not pass out of subcommittee. We hope that such legislation will be reintroduced and have even more success in 2024.
Second, it makes no sense that Virginia, unlike federal elections and campaigns in 47 other states, does not restrict how candidates can spend their campaign funds. This means candidates for public office in Virginia are free to use campaign funds (with no contribution limits) to take personal vacations, for example.
Bills introduced by members of both chambers to address this issue — Dels. Mike Cherry and Marcus Simon, as well as Sen. Jennifer Boisko, also failed to reach the governor’s desk last year.
The fate of these bills is clearly disappointing, especially considering what voters think about Virginia’s campaign finance laws, or lack thereof. A 2021 poll conducted by the Wason Center at Christopher Newport University shows that an overwhelming majority of Virginia voters support these common-sense measures to regulate election spending. .
A majority of voters in both parties support these measures, with 75% of those surveyed saying they support the creation of contribution limits. Additionally, an overwhelming majority (73%) of those surveyed said they supported “restrictions on the personal use of campaign funds.” This public support shows that the General Assembly should support these major campaign finance reform measures that failed last year.
These two measures can help. And there is still more progress to be made. In 2020, the bipartisan Integrity Coalition scored all 50 states on laws governing ethics and transparency regarding donations and spending. This was called the “States with Anti-Corruption Measures for Public Officials (SWAMP)” index. Virginia ranks 46th on the SWAMP index, and the study cited a lack of regulations to prevent conflicts of interest or punish officials who violate laws already in place. We must continue to consider further common sense changes to campaign finance rules to improve our position in this index.
The 2023 election could serve as a catalyst for Virginia’s elected officials to make aggressive changes to federal campaign finance rules.
Harrison Rhodey is an experienced Richmond-based business leader and founder of Bridging Virginia, a nonprofit community development loan fund that provides access to capital to Black, women, and minority-owned small businesses. I am a person.
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