Governor Glenn Youngkin is about to consider hundreds of bills that members of the General Assembly will be sending him. But campaign finance reform will not be on the list.
Virginia has almost no limitations on how much money candidates can raise or what they can spend it on. And now, lawmakers are about to wrap up this year’s General Assembly session without approving any campaign finance laws. Republican Senator David Suetterlein of Roanoke County had a bill that would have prevented lawmakers from raising money during a special session.
"What's most disappointing is the Democratic majority, even though three of their Democratic members co-patroned my legislation, sent it back to committee on a voice vote," Suetterlein says. "So, they were able to defeat it without any record of doing so."
Delegate Marcus Simon is a Democrat from Falls Church who had a bill that would’ve prevented candidates from using campaign cash for personal items – things like Botox treatments or casino spending sprees.
"We're asking the folks that have benefited, obviously we're here, right? So, everybody in the building succeeded under the current system. And you're now telling them, ‘Hey, the system that led to your electoral success, let's turn it over and turn its head,’ right? So, you've got some built-in institutional resistance," Simon explains. "People that are here genuinely don't feel like they are bad actors."
He says a scandal involving someone in Virginia abusing the system might end up creating a catalyst for change. But until that happens, he says, Virginia's campaign finance laws will continue to have an anything goes culture.
This report, provided by Virginia Public Radio, was made possible with support from the Virginia Education Association.
