A To-Do List

Submitted to the local print media on September 23, 2010:

Deon Turley, Democratic candidate for House District 61, has already begun a to-do list for the legislative session. She has identified loopholes in the election laws regarding campaign finance and has promised, when elected, to sponsor or support legislation to close two of them.

Political action committees dedicated to a single candidate serves the same purpose as the candidate’s own campaign committee but is treated differently under the law. When funds are transferred from the PAC to the candidate’s account, there is no record in that account of where the money originated. Utah campaign finance laws are intended to make campaign finance transparent to the public but, says Deon, "using single candidate political action committees adds a layer of obscurity" and she hopes to change the laws regarding this practice.

Election law also requires each legislative candidate and office holder to report his or her campaign contributions within thirty days of receiving them, and to file a sworn statement at intervals during an election year, that the filed report is correct.

“As voters we should be able to assume that frequent reports of contributions would give us current information about possible conflicts of interest,” said Deon. “However, this is not necessarily so, since lawmakers applied a very specific definition for the word ‘received’ to their own campaign contributions.”
A contribution is not "received" until the check is negotiated, cashed or deposited in the campaign bank account. The legislature did not offer the Governor the same loophole they have or he might have avoided the charge of "pay to play" that has recently given him trouble.

“The IRS does not give you the same loophole either,” observed Deon. “If your employer reports that they gave you a paycheck in 2010, you must include it in your 2010 tax return, whether or not you cashed the check. If you decide to return the check, shred it, give it to someone else, or frame it on the wall, you still must account for the payment.

“We are used to this accountability. We should hold legislators accountable as well.”

Deon said that the contribution loophole became apparent to her when she compared the fundraising reports of her opponent, Keith Grover, for two of his consecutive campaigns. In 2008 contributions to his campaign were reported on a regular basis throughout the year. This year, after a few reports in January and March, no reports of contributions or expenditures were filed until after the August 31st filing deadline.

The day after Deon lodged a complaint about his lack of disclosure, Grover reported a dozen contributions totaling almost $5000. These included checks dated as early as March 30th. Grover said that he had not checked his mailbox in time to list them with the reports he had filed most recently. Since Grover had not deposited the checks until then, no law was broken and the complaint was dropped.

Deon Turley has been a supporter of legislative ethics reform and volunteered last year to carry the Utahns for Ethical Government (UEG) petition. Opponents of that initiative asserted that transparency was all that voters needed to judge for themselves the ethics of their elected officials. Deon has promised to support or sponsor legislation to make campaign finance more transparent.