Last week the Campaign Disclosure Project gave Kansas a “better” grade in campaign disclosure for 2008. We’ve “improved” all the way to a “D+” from an “F” a few years ago. Sadly, even worse than this grade is the reporting of campaign finance stories by the Kansas press.
The Campaign Disclosure Project is a project of the UCLA School of Law, the Center for Governmental Studies, and the California Voter Foundation, supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
Here is the breakdown of Kansas’ grade for 2008:
The history of the grade achieved by Kansas is revealing of how little progress is being made.
Grade and Rank by Year for Kansas’ Political Money Disclosure
|
Year |
Grade |
Rank |
|
2008 |
D+ |
34 |
|
2007 |
D |
36 |
|
2005 |
F |
36 |
|
2004 |
F |
37 |
|
2003 |
F |
39 |
The Meadowlark was founded in 2003 partially out of frustration with the Kansas press in ignoring huge political money stories from 2002. The Kansas City Star in particular ignored repeated appeals for reporting and editorial comments in Aug. 2003 about what happened in 2002. Many of those E-mail appeals in 2003 were made in the month before Kansas was given an “F” in political money disclosure, yet the Star ignored the problem. The Star needs to do much more to promote political money transparency in Kansas, especially for Missouri money flowing into Kansas to affect Kansas’ elections.
The Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission could do a much better job enforcing Kansas law. In January of this year the Commission declined a request by the Meadowlark to address them at their meeting about problems being ignored in campaign reports.
When will the Kansas legislature provide more transparency about political money in Kansas? We the people deserve to know more about political money in Kansas.
Tags: Campaign Disclosure Project, Ethics, political money disclosure
