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Influence transparency a must

Little wonder — seeing as I work for a government transparency organization — that I think ministerial colleague and blogger Joseph Santos-Lyons (Radicalhapa.com) is correct about fund raising for the Unitarian Universalist Association presidential election campaign:

Are all donors revealed? Whats the timeline?

It gets back to influence, and as free people we deserve to know at least who has given more than, say, $200 to either candidate for his and her campaign.

This entry was posted by Scott Wells on Sunday, 10 August 2008 at 11:44 am and is filed under Unitarian Universalist Association. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Influence transparency a must”

  1. Joseph Santos-Lyons responds:
    10 August 2008 at 2:44 pm

    And it would be reasonable I think to know monthly. They do that for elections here in Oregon, you can go online to the SOS office. Its actually quite nice. Not fancy though. There can’t be THAT many donations.

  2. Bill Baar responds:
    10 August 2008 at 4:01 pm

    Is this typical for a UUA campaign? I can’t recall anything like this in over 20 years but then I never paid any attention before either. UUA simply wasn’t on my radar screen.

  3. Philocrites responds:
    11 August 2008 at 2:53 pm

    Here’s the UUA rule pertaining to campaign donations: Rule G-9.12.8. The disclosure requirements are:

    The names of contributors shall be disclosed. Each such report shall identify by name any member congregation, associate member organization or independent affiliate of the Association and any other tax exempt organization (including specifically, but without limitation to, any minister’s discretionary fund or similar account) that has made any contribution to the campaign and shall state the amount of each such contribution. Such reports shall be filed with the Secretary of the Association. A preliminary report shall be due at the close of the first day of the regular General Assembly at which the election occurs. A final report shall be due 60 days thereafter. The Secretary shall upon written request from a member of a member congregation furnish such information from these reports as requested. These reports shall be made available for inspection by any member of a member congregation at the principal offices of the Association and shall be brought by the Secretary to the next General Assembly and made available for inspection there by any delegate.

  4. Patrick McLaughlin responds:
    12 August 2008 at 12:23 am

    In the internet era, those reports ought to be available online for inspection.

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