Cuomo Wants Disclosure in Campaign Finance

I think states have a lot of say when it comes to people having to report campaign spending, so maybe this is a way to shine a light on exactly who is funding a particular super PAC:

Gov. Andrew Cuomo wants New York to be a “progressive leader” in reforming its campaign-finance laws, he said in a radio interview Wednesday afternoon.

Speaking to public radio’s Karen DeWitt, Cuomo said he will unveil a package of reforms in his upcoming State of the State address that would require politically active groups not registerred in New York to more broadly disclose their donors.

His proposal, he said, will go further than recent disclosure regulations from the Joint Commission on Public Ethics—which regulates lobbyists—and a plan laid out today by state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who regulates non-profits.

“We’re going to work on a piece of legislation for next year that will part of the State of the State that rationalizes the entire system,” Cuomo said. “The JCOPE regulations I think were a good start; I think we need to go further. The attorney general’s jurisdiction is helpful; I think we need to go further.”

There are essentially no federal rules in place, so someone with millions of dollars can come into a state and spend like crazy without anyone knowing where the money is coming from.

Let's hope this legislation has legs.