Darrin Lim Reveals Campaign Finance Enforcement Priorities

Politicom Law surveyed state and local regulators for an annual update of campaign finance laws and this year’s responses proved to be particularly enlightening in the area of campaign finance enforcement and the importance of filing reports in a timely manner.

State and local regulators overwhelmingly indicated that their top campaign finance enforcement priority concerned late or missed reports.  Other enforcement priorities include: questionable campaign expenditures and prohibited contributions.

Politicom’s Darrin Lim presented these and other findings at the annual conference of the Council on Governmental Ethics Laws (COGEL) during a session, which focused on legislative and regulatory campaign finance changes.  Lim shared the results of Politicom’s survey of 46 state and local regulators with the release of the COGEL Blue Book: 2017 Legislative and Regulatory Campaign Finance Update.

During the popular session, Lim walked attendees through the top 10 campaign finance developments of 2017, which included an appearance from Jodi Remke, the Chair of the Fair Political Practices Commission, who provided insights into California’s new disclaimer requirements for political advertising and the associated compliance challenges.

Also joining Lim for this year’s panel was: Erin Chlopak, Acting Associate General Counsel for Policy for the Federal Election Commission; Catie Kelley, Director of Policy & State Programs for the Campaign Legal Center; and Louise Sawdon, Manager, Local Elections Campaign Financing for Elections British Columbia.