Help bring Campaign Finance Reform to Virginia!

Push VA Legislators & the Governor to convene the Joint Subcommittee on Campaign Finance Reform* to review the Commonwealth's laws and promote reform.

  Background

*The Joint Subcommittee on Campaign Finance Reform has been extended from last year, but needs updated membership (including four citizen members, one to be appointed by the Governor). It has the responsibility to review the effectiveness of the Commonwealth's present disclosure laws and their enforcement, options to regulate campaign finances including contribution limits, and the desirability of specific revisions in the Commonwealth's laws.

Virginia needs comprehensive campaign finance reform. Our campaign finance laws are among the weakest in the country:

1. Virginia has no dollar limits on campaign donations.
   (One of only five states in the entire country.)
   
2. Virginia allows corporate contributions.
   (Which 22 states and the federal government ban.)
   
3. Virginia has no restrictions on personal use of campaign donations.
   (Campaign contributions to candidates can be redirected to pay for candidates’ personal expenses, without notice to donors.)
   
4. Virginia campaign finance laws do little to hold candidates accountable.
   (The Department of Elections, whose mandate includes the administration of campaign finance laws, lacks adequate authority and funding to regulate and monitor the millions of dollars influencing our elections.)

   It is not surprising that in 2020 the bipartisan Coalition for Integrity ranked Virginia 46th out of 51 in the S.W.A.M.P Index, a cross-state comparative analysis of government transparency and accountability. Last year Virginia's legislature passed only three out of two dozen campaign finance bills.