How hard is it to find out who has donated to a political campaign?

A rare non-poll question, but I'm curious if anybody has any knowledge on this.

I am doing my candidate reviews, and last weeks subject was Electoral Reform ( http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com/search/label/Electoral%20Reform%202008 I'm done with Democrats and halfway through Republicans) which I am continuing today. I am shocked at how many candidates haven't really grappled with this issue at all, but two themes seem to be emerging. The Democrats are in favor of improving campaign finance laws and getting the money out of politics (and seem to have heard that some voting machines might not be entirely trustworthy).

The Republicans are in favor of repealing McCain Fiengold and improving the American people's ability to know who donated to whom. So that there'd be nothing wrong with Lockheed Marting giving Romney millions to run his campaign as long as Romney had to let everybody know who was giving him money. In that way, the theory goes, we the American people would know that Romney was the pawn of Lockheed Martin and, if that bothered us, we would vote for the other guy.

My problem with this approach is, who's to say the American people would care - we already can know a fair amount about who's donating to whom, and I'm not sure it's a big issue, unless something really embarrassing happens. So making opening the financial floodgates and making it slightly easier to find out who's donating to whom - doesn't seem like it would help the situation (I favor full public financing of elections).

But what do you think?

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

Tiny contributions don't get disclosed, but then again, I don't think anyone pretends that whether a midlevel employee at Lockheed gave a candidate $50 matters.

If somebody wants to give over the limit, they will get other people to "front" for them and repay them. Or they strong arm their employees to giving to a candidate as a condition of their continued employment. Or they demand that contractors donate to candidate as a condition of continuing to do business with them. Or they steal the identities of others (living or dead) and donate under a false name.

The two main types of people who break the law this way are crooks who are expecting a pay back from the candidate later, or fundraisers (who almost always work on commission) who don't want to turn away any money. The candidate may not be involved in these kinds of illegal activities.

It is pretty comprehensive.

Federal campaigns must, by law, disclose every contribution of $250 or more. Contributions from PACs and other campaign committees are also subject to disclosure.

The Federal Election Commission has a searchable database on its web site:

http://www.fec.gov

You should also take a look at http://www.opensecrets.org

This site has some very good breakdowns of contributions by industry, info on leadership PACs, and all sorts of other goodies.

I forgot to mention that the FEC database (which is where Open Secets gets their info) only includes contributions to federal committees registered with the FEC. It does not include most state-level campaign committees.

Information on state-level contributions is a hit-or-miss proposition. In New Hampshire, where I live, it is reported to the Secretary of State, who posts the reposts in a PDF format on the state web site. A searchable database is currently under construction. Other states may have a different set up.

two sets of books. Like that whole Randy Cunningham, Jack Abramoff, Tom Delay--defense appropriations thing.

anything they spend and can't account for is presumably bought with ill-gotten gains.

Bryant