Candidates are now filing to run for office in Kentucky, and they're facing a confusing set of campaign finance laws, many of which have not been updated in nearly 20 years.
Emily Dennis is general counsel for the Kentucky Registry of Election Finance. She told lawmakers today that the tangle of campaign spending laws wastes time and money.
Dennis says candidates who spend under $1,000 dollars don’t have to report expenditures. Those who spend up to $3,000 dollars only have to report after the election is over. And expenditures above that must be reported before and after Election Day.
“If the goal of our campaign finance laws is transparency in an election, one has to question whether there is any value to a threshold that requires post-election reporting only,” she says. “And that threshold is particularly difficult to explain to a losing candidate.”
Dennis would like to limit the amount of non-reportable spending to $3,000, with any money spent over that subject to full disclosure.
