Batt Praises New Limits On Campaign Giving Governor Concedes Marginal Effect On Elections, But Defends ‘Step Ahead’

Gov. Phil Batt took issue on Monday with naysayers doubtful of the value the campaign finance restrictions he was signing into law would be to restoring public confidence in the election process.

Calling the bill one of the most important of the 1997 session, the governor said it was “a very important step ahead in the financing of elections in the state of Idaho.”

Overwhelmingly approved by the House and Senate, the new law restricts contributions to statewide campaigns to $5,000 each for the primary and general elections and to legislative campaigns to $1,000 each for the primary and the general.

It also requires labor organization and business employees who allow automatic paycheck deductions for political funds to reauthorize those deductions annually; mandates independent organizations to report expenditures before as well as after elections; and prohibits candidates from converting campaign funds to their personal use.

The personal use conversion ban was targeted at decisions such as the one retired 14-term House tax committee Chairman Steve Antone of Rupert made earlier this month when he converted an $8,500 balance in his treasury to his own use. Antone is currently working as a consultant for the state Tax Commission.

That money, subject to state and federal income taxes, was used to make three monthly mortgage payments on his home and three rental payments on a Boise apartment. The campaign turned the remaining $3,700 over to Antone personally.

It was the first significant campaign fund conversion state election officials could recall.

Even Batt conceded that the limits on campaign contributions would have only a marginal effect on Idaho elections. Applied to the 1994 governor’s race that saw a record $2.8 million spent by Batt and Democrat Larry EchoHawk, only 19 of the more than 3,500 contributions they received combined would have been affected. Batt would have been denied only $53,000 and EchoHawk $137,000.

Overall in 1994, records show that of the 11,600 contributors of nearly $7 million to 199 state and legislative candidates, only 97 contributions to 47 candidates would have had to be reduced, by $434,000. And 26 of those candidates lost their elections.

But the governor contended that it is where the reductions occur that makes the limits important.

“We finally say no one entity can dominate the scene,” he said.

And everyone called the legislation only a framework to build on in the future.

“Unfortunately, as with most issues, there is no panacea, no simple answer,” said Platt Thompson, a leader of the United We Stand movement that has made campaign finance reform a top priority.

The first expansion of the new law could come by initiative over the next 15 months.

With spending, rather than contributions, the real issue in many voters’ minds and no constitutional way to simply limit it, some reformers are talking about adapting portions of a law enacted by Maine voters last fall that sets up a system that combines some private contributions with public financing.

Public financing has been the only way the courts have allowed restrictions to be imposed on spending, but it has been rejected out of hand in Idaho even during times when there was surplus cash that could have been tapped to underwrite it.