Heartland Institute: San Antonio Increases Campaign Finance Reporting Requirements
By Madeline Fry
The San Antonio, Texas City Council approved an ordinance that will require political campaigns to collect and disclose the names, employers, and occupations of individuals donating $100 or more to candidates running for city office…
Bradley A. Smith, a professor of law at Capital University Law School and a policy advisor for The Heartland Institute, which publishes Budget & Tax News, says San Antonio’s new campaign-finance rules will facilitate political vigilantism and silence less-powerful people.
“In various states, people have been hounded from their jobs, and by that, I mean their employers have been boycotted or picketed until finally the employer has to fire the person or the person quits,” Smith said. “We live in an era of Twitter mobs, where all kinds of information can be found out almost instantaneously, so I think it’s probably as important as it’s ever been for the ability of people to support unpopular causes and to voice different opinions that are out of the ordinary, without fear of people retaliating against them.” …
Smith says blanket campaign-finance laws such as San Antonio’s unnecessarily intimidate people who have little political power.
“How many people say, ‘When I make a political contribution, I’m speaking for my employer’?” Smith said. “If we’re talking about the CEO of a big corporation who’s giving $5,000 or $10,000 or something like that, that can be easily found out. If you have somebody who’s an assistant manager at a bank and he writes a check for $100 to a City Council candidate, is this going to help us fight corruption or learn the candidate could be beholden to the banking industry?”
