A Senate committee killed two campaign finance reform bills in Virginia
Petersen tried again this year to ban contributions from public utilities and large individual donations.
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The rundown
Speaker Gilbert announced a huge fundraising haul heading into an election year
The Senate Privileges and Elections Committee killed two campaign finance reform bills
Surovell’s legislation to remove same-sex relationships from the state’s definition of obscene sexual content advances in state Senate
Senate committee kills bill that would have limited individual donations to politicians each cycle
State Sen. Chap Petersen’s bill to put a cap on individual donations to political candidates each cycle was killed by both Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Privileges and Elections Committee Tuesday.
This bill would have specifically banned any individual from donating more than $20,000 to an individual candidate during one cycle in Virginia — four years for a senator or statewide candidate and two years for a delegate.
Sen. John Bell (D) wanted to add an amendment to include a provision in case a self-funded candidate jumps into a race, then the limits would be thrown out for the opponent of the self-funded candidate.
The bill would still allow for political groups to spend whatever they want on races. Petersen noted that he knows there are loopholes and the legislation isn’t perfect, but he also noted Virginia has essentially no laws governing campaign donations. “This puts a better structure around our campaigns by limiting individual influence,” Petersen said.
The bill died, nonetheless.
Bill to ban donations from public utilities also dies Tuesday
The Senate P&E Committee also killed a bill from Sen. Petersen (D) that would have banned political donations from public utilities in Virginia. The bill would specifically ban candidates, campaign committees, and political committees from soliciting or accepting contributions from any public utility, like Dominion Energy, or example.
While the bill was being discussed in committee, Sen. Bryce Reeves (R) pointed out that this bill is aimed at Dominion and asked about Clean Virginia and Michael Bills, the Democratic donor who gives large sums to candidates not associated with Dominion.
“Clearly Dominion gives large sums of money to each side in the General Assembly,” Sen. Mark Peake (R) noted, before continuing to point out that there are large financial interests aimed at opposing Dominion. He said this bill would have prevented Dominion from responding to the attacks from other groups.
Petersen pointed out that the bill the committee just killed moments before would have also limited donations from Bills.
Sen. Creigh Deeds (D) moved to report and advance the bill but the committee voted to kill the bill with all but three Democrats voting to kill it.
