Call it the January joke: Sedgwick County voters finally learned this week who paid for the ads meant to sway their votes in the Aug. 7 gambling election. Worse, they won't know for another week who funded the campaigns for the April 3 general election, including for Wichita mayor and school board.
At such late dates, what is the point, other than to satisfy curiosity? It certainly isn't to serve the democratic process.
The lag time provides handy cover for publicity-shy contributors. But it sends voters to the polls with incomplete information. They've been bombarded by campaign messages via TV and radio commercials, print ads, mailers and automated phone calls, but they know next to nothing about the messengers.
By allowing candidates and campaigns to wait three or five or even 10 months after Election Day to disclose their donor lists, depending on the office involved, current state law is denying Kansans a chance to fully inform their votes.
To their credit, some candidates and organizations do better than the law requires. Wichita businessman Jack DeBoer told The Eagle before the gambling election that he had contributed $105,000 to the No Casinos in Sedgwick County campaign. In addition, the Moms Against Casinos group voluntarily named its supporters and totals before the election. Wichita Greyhound Park owner Phil Ruffin revealed he had spent a stunning $800,000 on the pro-gambling campaign.
Until Monday, though, voters' knowledge of the well-organized and well-funded No Casinos effort consisted only of DeBoer's donation and what group chairman Mark Kahrs had volunteered -- that No Casinos raised $605,000 from 301 businesses and 37 individuals.
So Sedgwick County voted without knowing that No Casinos had received $100,000 from Intrust Financial Corp. and $50,000 each from Koch Industries and ICM, with other five-digit donations coming from Murfin Inc., Hawker Beechcraft Acquisition Co., Cessna Aircraft Co., Builders Inc., Sunflower State Enterprises, Metal-Fab, Blue Beacon International, Central Christian Church, James Garvey, Barry Downing, Russ Meyer and Martha Buford.
"We are keeping our word and following Kansas law," Kahrs told The Eagle last August in refusing to disclose more about No Casinos. "If legislators think the law should be changed, that's something they should look at."
Lawmakers should change the law.
Would knowing the donors then have changed the outcome of the gambling election, in which casino opponents prevailed with 56 percent of the vote and slot machines at the dog track lost by 246 votes? Maybe not, but the Internet makes electronic reporting of such information possible within minutes.
State law should help voters follow the money, not needlessly keep a campaign's finances under wraps until long past election night. |
