in minnesota we have with us this evening three speakers who will present their points of view on this topic and then we will be opening the program to questions from the audience my name is joan higginbotham and i'll be moderating this night's program are perilous this evening on my right nicholas harper nicholas is a board member of the league of women voters of st paul and he is an attorney here in the state of minnesota our second speaker is jerry canoed she is the policy and outreach manager for the league of women voters of minnesota and  miss is our third panelist and he is the executive director of the minnesota campaign finance and public disclosure board we're going to look at the state the national and to some ideas for reform here in the state of minnesota and we begin with the national perspective and that will come to us from nicholas harper welcome nicholas thank you thank you for inviting me here today i only have a quick short period to explain i was going to talk about finance from the federal level and that for a modern campaign finance is about forty years or more depending on your perspective and their entire legal textbooks written about this subject so i'm going to try and condense it down and simplify it as much as possible before we start a couple of clarifications just in case anyone doesn't know if i refer to a pact that means a political action committee which is type a type of organization that campaign  finance regulations apply to organizations corporations labor unions and candidates use in order to finance their campaigns it's a special kind of body also when i talk about corporations i'm referring not only to for profit corporations but also as some nonprofit corporations as well so campaign finance the modern version really  when we talk about modern campaign laws we talk about the federal election campaign act in one nine hundred seventy two which was amended in one thousand nine hundred four after the watergate scandal which is when it really  c which regulates campaign finance issues at the federal level and then also it there is also the bipartisan campaign reform act of two thousand and two which also is the main federal statute that covers campaign finance law but i'm going to talk mostly about specific cases in the supreme court over the years that have affected those statutes and how the statutes apply at the federal level and then also because those cases and that case there are a couple different disclosed couple different issues that were brought up but two different issues where the main focus first were campaign contributions and then second where independent expenditures camping hundred missions are when an individual or at pac gives money to a candidate and their campaign so and then the they can't the candidate gets to choose how to spend that money independent expenditures on the other hand or when an individual or a pac spends the money on an ad or other communication that they themselves have created it's completely separate from any control from the candidate  those are the two main issues that were decided on it and buckley  the court decided in that case that contributions and expenditures were fully protected speech because all speech requires or most speech almost all speech requires spending money in some form that was the court's rationale and that's where we kind of get this idea that money is speech and that is kind of what started number of cases in the supreme court system related to money and speech and money and politics and those issues the reason the court came to this decision is because the first amendment which covers the freedom of speech  because money was determined to be speech pure speech the first amendment has a special legal test it's called strict scrutiny which means that in order to justify that kind of law you have to have and these are kind of magic words for the court compelling government interest and that the law must be narrowly tailored to further that interest so what that means is the court has to have a that the state has to have a very good justification for acting these laws the compelling interest the state argued or the federal government argued in this case for regulating money in politics was corruption and not only actual corruption but also the appearance of corruption and the supreme court agreed in that case the court agreed to that corruption and the appearance of corruption were very important and we're just occasionally order to enact these laws now when i talk about corruption i specifically mean quid pro quo corruption which most people consider to be bribery is being kind of the most obvious example it's a very narrow definition of cor it's for contribution limits the court found that those limits where constitutional they said that its limits on the amount to an individual or a packet give to a candidate was constitutional because it prevented corruption and or the appearance of corruption to the american public they found that independent expenditures however by virtue of being independent were not did not give rise to corruption or the of corruption and therefore any laws that regulated those where not constitutional so that's where you get the money in politics the next big case that everyone of course has heard of the citizens united in two thousand and ten and that was controversial because the case the supreme court turned over other precedent that the supreme court had set so with the supreme court kind of flipped their opinion on this and that's why part of the reason it's so controversial  the court decided the distinction between corporations and natural persons like you and i in the context of sprit said free speech independent expenditures was unconstitutional that we couldn't distinguish between the two in terms of independent expenditures and that's where you get the idea that corporations are people the supreme court struck prohibitions i'm independent expenditures by corporations from their corporate treasuries most corporations they ha corruption and that's also another issue that a lot of people especially reformers have had with that decision now to be clear direct contributions from corporate treasuries are still banned by federal law and  in april i think and in that case the two statutes that i mentioned that they have two different limits on contributions they have based limits in aggregate limits based limits or the amount that an individual or pac can contribute to a individual candidate during a certain period aggregate limits however the amount of that individual or packed can give to all candidates in a certain  period the government is trying to argue that they that aggregate limits were important because they helped prevents candidates and individuals from skirting around the base limits because they were afraid to back certain candidates and certain committees would we contribute money the courts did not buy backs the court said that that rican contra the contribution of fines was implausible that most candidates use their phones and they also noted not actually and the reconfirmation of fines but banned but put this aggregate limits so the court held that it wasn't nearly tailored enough so you have these different issues about its the campaign contributions and individual expenditures and their interaction with the first amendment and free speech two other issues that i'd like to point out that i think are major themes that a lot of people discuss in regards to corporations are people that has been a concept that has actually been around a very long time there has been law kind of pointing to that and people have cited cases as far back as eighteen nineteen where we have considered corporations to be people and typically we enjoy this we enjoy that corporations are people because it allows corporations to enter into contracts it allows corporations to sue and to be sued the issue is that when corporations began to have constitutional rights in the same way natural individuals had constitutional rights that became a problem for people and finally i'd like to point out disclosure and transparency has been an issue throughout all these cases that were upheld all of the court  decisions have disclosure requirements and transparency requirements by statutes and there's only been one justice who has ever disagreed with that and that was justice thomas and he's only he was i think the only one most other cases have supported disclosure requirement executive director of the minnesota campaign finance and public disclosure board and he will talk about what is happening in the state of minnesota thank you thank you for being here tonight i'm happy to report th minnesota has an active agency the form of six board members who are looking you know for your intrusive as citizens in learning how money is raised and spent for elections at the state level and actually the board is celebrating its fortieth anniversary we came into existence just after the federal election commission and on the heels of the buckley decision it was talking about if you have other questions about the board i'll be happy to take them in the question period i want to actually spend my remaining nine minutes or so on two questions first of all can we ever regain control of spending on elections in minnesota and secondly if we can't can we ever get throat disclosure of who is actually behind all that spending and on the first question i say the answer is probably not as nick pointed out the courts have held now without dispute that you cannot regulate the amount of money that either an individual or corporation can spend independently of candidates and so that door's open and i see no way that that door will ever close again actually buckley also held that you cannot limit the amount of money that an individual can spend of their own money to get elected or you might think we have spending limits in minnesota and we do but that's because we have a voluntary system where people sign a contract with the board to limit their spending and as a result they get public subsidy payments direct payments of tax dollars to help with their campaign and that program has actually helped keep minnesota elections among the cheapest in the country for us at state of our size  independent spending however is booming and it's a booming business it's not just corporations and associations affiliated with them prior to citizens united party units were the biggest independent spenders with citizens united we've seen more of that money flow into what minnesota calls independent expenditure committees they're like super pacs at the federal level they can raise unlimited money from each donor that wants to give to them they can spend unlimited money independently from the candidates and there's limited disclosure because they only disclose really up one level so if another group gives to them like a nonprofit corp aeration will see that group as the donor but we don't know where that corporation got any of its money and that's an issue the board the campaign finance support is going to working on our experience has been that citizens united so far hasn't put a lot more money into the system it's rather moved it from associations that disclose fully to us to these super pacs or independent expenditure committees that funnel the money through some other group like to see for corporation or trade association and so while the money hasn't gone up too much the amount of disclosure has gone down i think significantly so i don't see any way in minnesota that we're going to be able to further limit the amount of spending it's only going to go up unless some huge shift in judicial at the supreme court level takes place and that's not likely but what about better disclosure i think there is some hope there as nick said eight out of the nine justices in citizens united up held the disclosure provisions of the federal law that they were concerned with unfortunately in deciding to to allow corporations to use their own money to make unlimited expenditures the citizens united cordin vision a disclosure system that doesn't exist doesn't exist at the federal level doesn't exist at the state level they envisioned instant disclosure on line where you could see where money was coming from and where it was going and that doesn't exist anywhere for new might be getting a little bit in that direction they're actually trying to get up more than one level to find where the original source of money comes from some either a human being or business corporation that earn the money in their business but not just a filter through which money flows are the problems with disclosure in minnesota right now and and my board is aware of these we work to eliminate them i'm sure we'll have more to say about that but there are two areas where we don't get to see closure one is based on what the statute says must be disclosed and this goes back partly to buckley vs palaeo but there were cases in between for these independent groups the law says in minnesota that you disclose only those communications that express the advocate for the election or defeat of a candidate and buckley said that means using words like vote for a vote against in a soldier's law isn't quite that specific the board hasn't decided exactly what express the advocates means but for example if you listen to t v very much these days you have probably seen a commercial the talks about governor dayton and the democrats and the big beautiful new office building they're building by the capitol and the people in the commercial complain that their real estate taxes have gone up as a result and that a man changing his tire wishes that they would spend the money to fix roads and potholes now that's put on by a organization who is spending the money independently and is not registered with the campaign finance board does not report the expenditures or where the money came from and that's because that commercial isn't express advocacy it doesn't say vote for or vote against or anything that really makes it you correct that you're intelligent people i think it's clear to you who you're supposed to vote for or against but it doesn't say that in the words of the commercial and that's one of the areas that the board wants the legislature to work on is defining what subject to disclosure the other issue is in what you disclose even for an expenditure that is subject to disclosure and this is that issue of going up one level as i said an independent expenditure committee will disclose the corporation or the nonprofit corporation that gave it money for example the sierra club or the n r a donated one hundred thousand dollars but we do don't know anything about where the sierra club or the n r a got that money now for those groups that's probably not too material because they have thousands or tens or hundreds of thousands of donors all fairly small but what about an organization like american sport prosperity which has been linked at least in the media koch brothers we don't know because we don't have any reporting from them or some other group that we don't know anything about at all being the donor to one of these registered pacs we don't know if that group got five contributions or one contribution or a thousand contributions we do have a law that does go a little bit into the depth of the underlying sources of that donor but it's so weak in minnesota as to be almost totally ineffective a said that our effort the board's effort was dangerous politically motivated measures aimed at suppressing political speech by members of the ship organization such as the n r a pose a grave risk to freedom of speech impose excessive regulatory burdens and on political and commercial interests that's the picture they're painting and all the points paint that same picture it's just terrible hurts jobs what is the picture that pro ponens of better disclosure are painting well it's good we want sunlight we want everybody to know where the money is coming from it's not a very threatening picture it doesn't convey i think very much of a sense of urgency like the republic is going to fall if we don't have this disclosure some commentators have suggested that the argument ought to be styled in terms of dark money hiding big donors info legislators and everybody in campaign finance regulation that i know of disagrees with the supreme court's holding that says independent spending cannot have an influence on the elected official and i know that from experience even the threat of independent expanding can have an influence on the boat and the attitude certainly of an elected official so i think you have to change the conversation you have to get many more people involved one of the groups opposing the actions the board tried to have the legislature take claims to have to have an eight thousand members in minnesota most of these groups are groups that have members who are politically active who will contact their legislators sure legislator by e mail when they're asked to do so and legislators are flooded with e mails and they respond to those in some sense i get  picture from our experience that it's not always just the money and maybe that's a good thing because it's these groups with many many active members who also vote who get the legislators here and really money has nothing to do with that part of it thank you thank you so much to our next speaker is going to talk about some reform efforts and of course that would be the league of women voters who is involved in that and are speaker is sherry knute thank you for having me here tonight the league of women voters of the united states foreign positions on campaign finance and money in politics after the watergate scandal and its the general position that only works under is to support incremental reform measures while working toward pile public financing as the final solution so and that's what we're doing here at the league in minnesota and the u one of the things i think we're seeing a really dark picture here tonight and i think we have to keep in mind that work early in it's really not been very many years since services united was decided in two thousand and ten and since some of these changes have occurred to really being bring the really big dollars into our system people are still reacting and people are trying to find ways to deal with that if you listen to the media you hear you know a variety of efforts that are being made around the united states and here in minnesota we  working with the l d p bill us lee which is going to convene a new study committee to address the issue address what changes should be made in the way to citizens united and mccutcheon and we're also taking efforts at the state level ourselves to try to improve disclosure and move the needle on making this issue stronger in the eyes of citizens and public officials and working toward longer term solutions so one of the things there gary mentioned was the effort in the last legislative by to improve disclosure of independence spending and that's where we see this loophole about ads that go on t v but don't use magic words such as vote for vote against don't have to be disclose the people behind those ads don't have to be disclosed so kind is advocating at the legislature in favor of the disclosure legislation and we're asking our members and the public to let their legislators know that they support this disclosure measure and gary mentioned a couple of the groups sad are against the in in akron of new disclosure legislation it doesn't matter to me what those groups stand for and terms of the public policies they're trying to a fag but it does matter that's sessional interests are preventing disclosure legislation about what special interests are doing want that information should be public the supreme court repeatedly says that disclosure is recommended and in fact the internet should be used as a way to allow citizens to get ready access to money in politics and who is trying to influence their vote so in addition to supporting the disclosure legislation the league here in minnesota is seeking improvements in the minnesota campaign finance for web site and i'm happy to say that in fact that is underway and just in the past couple weeks minnesota campaign finance for it has been soliciting comments from interested parties about what should their website look like and the thing that the league really would like to see is databases their sasa bowl to people like you and me to the media to watchdog groups i think the campaign finance for it has been underfunded in terms so what it needs to accomplish here in minnesota and it's done the best you could with the website as exists but we'd like to see a website that has user friendly guy and a user friendly model and i just want to take him aside and say that i think the campaign finance small donor empowerment models what a small donor empowerment model is is if i put fifty dollars toward the candidate running in my district for her house seat for instance if minnesota have a small donor empowerment model that contribution could be matched on five or six to one so if i make a fifty dollar donation and we have a five to one manch that becomes another two hundred fifty dollars for that candidate and this has really just basic day to day practical implications so much of our people running for office have to spend so much time raising money if they were able to go to groups of small donors and have contributions by small donors enhanced by public funding it would really make sense for them has been work time with small donors to do more grassroots work and it amplifies the voice of small donors who are able to spend more time with the candidates and speak their mind about what they'd like to see for their district and the state so right now in the united states there are some municipalities that use small donor empowerment models such as new york city so far it has not been adopted at the state level there was an attempt to do that in new york in the past year but so that this is something that we need to work for you know a longer term goal but i want to be the one to say so encouraging things you know this is a really important issue and maybe the biggest issue though is not really the big money that's being spent but the sense of apathy and cynicism that many people including some of us feel about how to address this problem that's probably the bigger issue where is that outrage where are people saying this is really wrong i think as so we want to offer reals real solutions that we can move forward in real time and that encourage you to speak to your legislator encourage you to communicate with your friends and talk about you know this is a big problem but you nice we faced other big problems in the united states and we' chipped away at them and made it impact so i hope we'll take away from that house that there is there are opportunities here and gary mentioned that it's hard to message on this issue unfortunately big frame democracy messaging doesn't work very well so one of the things we're exploring is messaging to try to personalize the message we say to voters or citizens and we're working on what that might supporting policies that damage clean water the outcome is that you're going to have dirty water polluted water so the idea behind the messaging and it's been worked on in focus groups is to personalize that we need to tie this to what's going on in real people's lives and there are ties it's just that it's hard to do and establish some of those ties so this is something we're going to be alert working on and bringing out to the public as as we try to reform in this area thank you we've had some information our way right now and it's your opportunity to dig in a little deeper with your questions and i know there are up paper cards for you to fill out and so if someone would bring those questions up we'll start off with those and i'm sure we will have plenty of issues to dig into here tonight thanks first of all to our speakers for bringing us really good concise information o for our vote against how do you define what topics are require disclosure and b that would be something for the campaign finance support sure i've been i've been looking at this question a lot been looking at this question a lot just over the last couple of weeks as i examine a lot of the communications that are out there right now the board did propose a an approach to this it's actually approached it's not original it comes directly from chief justice john roberts in the u s supreme court in a couple of cases or case it came after buckley called wisconsin right to life and justice roberts said you don't really need the magic words before you can get disclosure regulate a piece of literature if the literature is so clear that no reasonable person could understand it to be anything other than an attempt to influence the vote and election then you can get disclosure for that piece of literature and that's called the functional equivalent of express advocacy and so the board is looking at how we might write that into law it's been a recommended by the league and by the board so it still gives the benefit of the doubt to the speaker if you could look at the ad and say well this has some other purpose then that's fine it's not going to be subject to disclosure but if nobody in a room of reasonable people sees it as anything other than to influence an election that would be subject to disclosure now somebody is making in the sumption here saying if public funding isn't the solution what is and i guess the league's long term solution would be public funding so let's nic do you have any opinion on that in the last year  especially in the federal level and it could happen on the federal level there has been a lot of talk about making constitutional amendments related either to corporate personhood or money in politics or both i think just last week actually there was the democracy for all amendments was in the senate died due to a procedural vote but it was the first amendment of its kind to gain a majority more than fifty votes in the senate amendment to the constitution that would have allowed the regulation of money in politics basically and would have allowed for regulatory body use states in federal to distinguish between natural persons and corporate entities personhood issue isn't really going to make a difference even if they say corporations are people because you have all sorts of non corporate associations of people who always were allowed to make these kinds of expenditures but the key part of the constitutional amendment that would be important is to make it clear that regulation of money in political speech is not an infringement on the first amendment that would take a constitutional amendment and i guess i would post to sherry since she's sort of the advocate of this is that how does small donor empowerment or public financing resolve the problem of the overall cost collections when it can't possibly address independent expenditures as the court has currently permitted them well carry through me a t there i don't think that small donor empowerment is answers all the problems in the system i think it's really important that we have disclosure by independent spenders and hold those independent spenders accountable and that's tough when you have loopholes in your disclosure lats so we really want to see those the polls closed and have dynamic databases accessible to people on our accessible on the internet so that we can hold people accountable when they take certain votes or when they are yes but i was in a certain position during their campaign i just want to add that the elderly of the of the united states has not supported the constitutional amendments it is part of the study that's being undertak right now by the us league and that it's not that and so far part of the reason for not supporting them is concerned about the length of time that it takes to amend the u s constitution and you know it's a very it's a very difficult process for good reasons so that's one of the things that us we will be looking at and i think whatever it position on that is we will continue to need to take other steps to address the current situation as if constitutional amendment were to be winding its way through the system someone asked a question that probably we should give a little time to and then they've asked about local elections but what is the should we increase the amount that a citizen can give directly to a local candidate and what are they a lot of the levels  that you can contribute to can individual candidates and that's probably something and you know very well kerry i know it but not all that well but let me say that in two thousand and thirteen the campaign finance board recommended that the legislature increase the amount that individuals could give to statewide candidates not stay why but state candidates so your legislative candidates your constitutional office candidates and also to increase the amount that those candidates could spend and still participate in the public subsidy program and that those recommendations passed and they were partly to help give the candidates their own voice back among the din of independent spending also they were partly at least the contribution limit increase was partly to improve the constitutional standing of our disclosure system because we felt that requiring disclosure of somebody that gave just over one hundred dollars might not stand the cost to szell test of balancing your privacy versus the public's right to know who's influencing elections now the legislature didn't do anything about local races that year they were one hundred dollars in a non election year and i think three hundred in an election year five hundred someone's telling me but this in two thousand and thirteen the legislature did increase those limits as well and in addition in that bill the legislature required local units of government all the way down to school board and townships that have websites to publish campaign finance reports on their website and the filing officer is required to provide the campaign finance board with the link and we publish all those links to local websites so now you have to the extent that they're out there you have one place you can go which is our website to see all those local reports now this is this is sort of  question why should public money be used to fund elections i think this is something that cheri will touch on later and it goes to the small donor empowerment public funding of elections some people opponents will sometimes refer to it as subsidies for politicians i personally don't know if i agree with that characterization of it i think that public funding it's does help to  kind of it does help to kind of clear the air in terms of you have so many different interest groups making contributions public funding allows smaller candidates who wouldn't otherwise find support so easily from individuals to kind of gain access to the system and become candidates by small donations through public funding  programs and i think that is helpful for not only from their perspective money in politics and corruption but also in terms of competitiveness and having more candidates to choose from  election well my my primary response to that question in my head is always well somebody has got to do it so where's the best place to come from it's got to come out i mean it does take money to mailings or whatever and so there has to be money to support campaigns and if it comes from the public traffic it's not being tainted by special interests are elected leaders can represent citizens and not be dependent on their what special interests want to achieve i'd like to comment on that too i think  minnesota by the way has it as two components to its public funding first of all there's the direct payment which i refer to as the public subsidy program candidates do have to resist small amount of warm individual donors from small donors for house representative candidates that's fifteen hundred dollars before they will get public subsidies they have to serve qualify themselves a bed we have another program called the contribution refund program where any candidate again who has agreed to limit their spending can issue a receipt to a donor and the donor can get back the first fifty dollars that they donated to that candidate both of those come from the general fund that's tax money of the state years ago minnesota had sort of a measurement system called minnesota milestones and i still think some of them are relevant one of them was citizen involvement we measure ourselves by citizen involvement in the public subsidy program including the contribution refund program got people more involved because people who could not afford to donate fifty dollars to a candidate could do that they got to know the candidate that even that small donation even when it's responded gives that citizen a bond with that cannonade makes that citizen more likely to get out and vote on election day and that was important to minnesota and i think it should still be important now and the other component of the next component is not only does it give these new less known candidates some money but because most candidates in minnesota more than eighty five percent paul participate in the public subsidy program overall cost me elections are low so a person can come in and participate not having to worry about getting all sorts of money from outside sources and finally i think sherry touched on this this program overall again by keeping the cost of elections low gives the candidates time to communicate with voters instead of spending all their time in a room making phone calls for money w the corollary which i think we probably answered already is if minnesota were to increase the funding for election campaigns where would the money come from and i think we've already basically said that would come from us but in a different  form it will come from us and it won't actually be a different form it'll still be from the general fund which is your general tax dollars people sometimes talk about the check off on your tax form words to show you donate five dollars to the of the republican party even that if you read it closely does not affect your refund it's a donation that you're directing the state to make from its general fund of tax dollars so it all comes from tax dollars i think that minnesota that the campaign from the candidates side you can only take so much story from a donor side you can only donate so much and you'd have to spread it around a lot thinner than you otherwise could if you wanted to give it to everybody we have a similar law on the candidates and it says you can only take so much from large donors lobbyists and pacs once he had that limit you can't take any more from that group of people there's a case in federal court right now called seating versus wiener dno whiners the chair the board and at the district court level here in st paul the court trial court judge struck down the part of our law that says candidates can only take a certain amount from large givers these are people who give more than half of the otherwise high limit so that limit is gone now in wisconsin a similar limit applied to pacs just got struck down by a district federal judge so those limits are going to be gone and i think if we want to limit the amount of money that candidates can take from these pools of particular donors like lobbyist pacs and really large givers it's going to have to be voluntary which means it has to be by a contract through the subsidy public subsidy program and that means there's going to to need more funding to keep that program beneficial to the candidates who agree to it i just want to i just like to add i actually was doing a little research on that question about a month ago about where where could the money come from for more public funding of campaigns and want to get the idea that i ran across was a tax and fees for media ads associated with elections so just an idea i know that that would be a unique solution to the problem at home and i think we all like that not only whether that but another question that is sort of a little more esoteric but what are the rules for that or a  group has to follow if they're going to register as a pac and maybe you since you talked about what pacs are nick i don't know if that's something you know off the top of your hair are at a lot of rules for pacs and that's about as it i mean it's easy really the if you read any court case where a group is challenging the registration reporting requirements they make it sound like you have to have a campaign finance lawyer and jump through all sorts of hoops to do it and that's absolutely not true and some day actually in some chords agencies have had the opportunity to prove that the courts have agreed with them in minnesota if a group of tour more people want to register a pac it's a one page form you pick one of you to be a treasure in the other to be the chair can be the same person even if you want to be you open a bank account and you file the one page form with us that's it you're registered then you report on money that you get in money you spend you itemize only if you get more than two hundred dollars from a person or pay more than two hundred dollars to somebody the legislature did just  increase all the thresholds for registration so if you want to influence elections even if you're two or three people working together you can spend up to seven hundred fifty dollars you don't have to do anything no registration no reporting or anything and if you're doing an independently of candidates you can spend up to fifteen hundred dollars and you don't have to do anything no registration no reporting or anything besides that we have a staff of nine people in st paul answer our own phones are always happy to help you i just want to i'd like to add one thing to that and suddenly i forgot what was the question again well i'm going to move on to the next some because i think you may remember when i ask you about that because it's how do i find out about the money that has affected the campaign of a particular candidate so if we want to find out where somebody money came from i remember when i was going to say i had n p r about a month ago i heard a piece about a junior in high school in minutes who is doing his project on campaign finance and he registered a pac and also if you've ever watched stephen call bear which is a comedy show stephen called bear did a piece i don't know if it was one or two years ago a series away with with a real campaign finance lawyer who came on the program and they went through well what would i have to do to file a pac and what would what kinds of laws are restricting me and i mean it was amazing i mean the guy would just say well no you just fill out this piece of paper and then that's it and and actually one of the major united states newspapers reported that people learned more about campaign finance from the stephen called bear show than most other sources so i'm mentioning it for a reason now what how do how can you find out and i know we talked a little bit about this earlier how can you find out about if you're interested in a candidate and who supports them who helps to fund their campaign i'm sure that it's the campaign finance board but but i think you have different opinions so why don't we hear from both of you well there are databases on the minnesota campaign finance board web site that you can go into and search by candidate name or can you search by independen contributor right sherry mentioned earlier we've just embarked on a major project and it's going to be probably certainly months and maybe a year we'll be lucky if it's done in one year to revamp our whole website the data is all there almost now but not all that well organized or easy to access the easiest thing is if you know the candidate's name you can click there's a it says candidates at the top and you click on that it's as the reports and you can go right to see the images these are not data these are images of their file reports most of them are filed electronically so they're easy to read you can see the reports way back into the turn over the two thousands for all the candidates we also do have searchable data we just modified our searchable data user interface to make it a little easier but you can pick a candidate and you can say tell me all the donors to that candidate for as many years as we have in our system or you can pick a donor or you can pick a group of donors and say tell me all the people that donor has given to in the years that are in our system or you can narrow it to specific years where we're going is to improve the data to make it more searchable to create a page for example where you can enter the name of a person a candidate for example and you'll see everything about that candidate excess on one page all the reports all of the complaints that might have been filed against the candidate probably even a link to what that candidate has done in the legislature so there's a lot of data there already and we're going to make it better and again if you have questions about how to access it when you actually get on the website give us a call and while i was preparing for this event today i was thinking what if we asked candidates in their candidate forums who their major funders radically would they no i think most of them do i remember when i was working for a common cause someone a local candidate here said well i don't know those numbers because that's all my my treasurer i have nothing to do with   do track and analyze campaign finance information on the federal level there is the sunlight foundation and then there's also follow the money dot org which is the national institute on money in politics and they do state level money and they have web sites that use the information from state websites and from the f e c but then they also do additional analysis and they also have their own systems that make it for a lot of people find it to  be easier to read through and to and to analyze the financial information provided great so you can find that information on your using your computer now this is a question and i'm not sure what the answer is what is the role of foresman in the campaign finance area although technically she would have some authority should she choose to move into that however in a recent case he turned the general about that she would not be enforcing the laws and so with regard to corporate contributions at the level of state elections the campaign finance board forces that law and for local elections there's not really any enforcement agency but complaints can be filed with the office of administrative hearings  i might add one more thing you know i'm actually very proud of the board that i work for and people should know that we're not only a regulatory and a disclosure agency but we're also an investigative agency so if we see something that looks wrong on reports or we see something on television that looks wrong or somebody files a complaint we actually investigate those matters and make a final determination so that's a big benefit to have an organization like that here in minnesota our time is almost up so i'd like to thank our speakers for being with us tonight sherry camillus from the league of women voters gary goldsmiths from the minnesota campaign finance practices board i've got the old name it's the campaign finance board now correct finance and public disclosure board used to be called ethical practices board yes and that's the name i remember and nick harper i'm turny who has done some work a lot of work actually on campaign finance reform thanks to you for all your good questions tonight and thanks to the league of women voters for sponsoring this form we hope that it will give you some ideas of how you can help to make our elections fairer for every one of candidates and voters thanks so much for being with us tonight tonight