Senate bill on personal use of campaign cash heads to House panel that killed it before

On Friday morning, a freshman Republican delegate voiced an unusually blunt opinion on why Virginia lawmakers are still finding it so difficult to pass a law stopping them from spending donors’ money on themselves.

Acknowledging he’s still “new here,” Del. Paul Milde, R-Stafford, said he sees no reason why the General Assembly couldn’t have figured the issue out over the last decade.

“The only rationale I can see for some of us resisting this after 10 years is because they want to have the flexibility to buy things that really aren’t campaign related,” Milde said during Friday’s meeting of the House Privileges and Elections Committee. “And I just can’t believe we can’t get it together on this.”

Milde indicated he’s not hopeful this year’s going to be any different for legislation seeking to ban the personal use of campaign funds. But for now, the idea still has a flicker of life.

On Friday, the House elections committee unanimously passed a personal use bill that had already cleared the Senate. However, instead of going to the House floor for a full vote, it’s going to the House Appropriations Committee, the same place a similar bill died without a hearing earlier in the session.

Several other campaign finance reform bills aimed at capping contribution sizes and preventing donations from regulated utilities have already failed, leaving the Senate’s personal use bill as the last chance for reform supporters to get a significant piece of legislation passed this year.

Sen. Jennifer Boysko, D-Fairfax, asked Friday for the bill to go straight to the House floor. But the elections panel instead sent it to the budget committee, a move that complicates its path to passage.

In an interview Friday, Boysko said she still hopes the bill can pass and is planning to tweak it to try to boost its chances in the House Appropriations Committee.

“I have an amendment that I think we’ve worked out that I think will be something they will find amenable,” Boysko said.

Whether that amendment gets heard depends on whether the committee dockets the bill as the 2024 session enters its final two weeks.

“We want people to trust us when we ask for money,” Boysko said. “It’s a commonsense transparency bill.”

Boysko’s pending amendment clarifies who would be qualified to file a complaint about alleged violations of the rule. It removes language that says complaints can only come from campaign donors or voters who would be represented by the candidate in question.

Virginia’s wide-open campaign finance system allows politicians to accept unlimited donations from special interests and wealthy donors and — unlike laws at the federal level and in other states — doesn’t prohibit candidates from spending that money to cover personal expenses that have no connection to their campaigns.

Efforts to bring Virginia into alignment with the rest of the country have failed year after year as legislators have raised concerns that the proposal might backfire and open them to weaponized accusations of corruption where none exists.

At Friday’s hearing, House Minority Leader Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah, echoed a longstanding concern from lawmakers that the line between official political use and personal use isn’t always as clear as outside observers might think. As a former speaker, Gilbert said people in leadership positions are expected to travel extensively to raise money and support other candidates’ campaigns. The precise wording of the bill, he suggested, shouldn’t be so strict that he or others would be penalized for using campaign funds to pay for parking or a hotel room while attending those types of events.

“I’m not complaining. … I chose to do this,” said Gilbert, who voted for the bill. “But I want to make sure that I can use the natural funds that are available to support those bigger campaign activities.”

Del. Cia Price, D-Newport News, who chairs the House elections committee, reminded Gilbert that the bill allows lawmakers to seek guidance from state election officials on what would and wouldn’t count as a legitimate expense.

“If you did something that you received guidance for, you are covered under it,” Price said.

Boysko’s bill spells out that campaign funds could not be used to pay for things like a home mortgage, clothing, cars, country club memberships, vacations, food, tuition payments and entertainment unrelated to a campaign. Mirroring federal law, it would allow elected officials to use campaign funds on “ordinary and necessary expenses incurred in connection with the duties of the individual as an office holder.”

The bill allows campaign funds to be used for child care expenses tied to campaigning, a carveout meant to allow more working parents to run for office without upending their family finances.

The State Board of Elections would be responsible for investigating alleged violations. If a violation were to be found, the candidate would have to repay any money spent on unlawful purposes and could be fined up to $10,000 depending on the severity of the violation. The board would also have the ability to declare complaints frivolous, a finding that could allow legal action against the person who complained for “abuse of process.”

At Friday’s hearing, Boysko invoked the recent example of former Republican congressman George Santos, who was expelled from the U.S. House of Representatives after being accused of improperly using campaign cash to pay for luxury goods, vacations, Botox treatments and purchases on OnlyFans, an online platform for explicit content.

“He spent money on spa days. On vacations. On items from luxury retailers. And rent,” Boysko said. “What is so disturbing to me, in Virginia, the vast majority of his spending currently is legal.”

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This article first appeared on Virginia Mercury and is republished here with permission. Virginia Mercury is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Virginia Mercury maintains editorial independence.