By Doug Meslow and Susan Gaertner
Over the years, Minnesota has prided itself on clean political campaigns. We expect our candidates to be honest and play fair. A bill passed by the 2004 Legislature promises to bolster that important tradition.
The law ensures swift action on complaints involving illegal campaign practices in state and local elections. This involves everything from distributing false campaign literature to claiming bogus endorsements. Violations of campaign finance reporting requirements in local elections also are covered.
Here's how it works: All campaign complaints will be filed with the state Office of Administrative Hearings. When a complaint is filed, an administrative law judge must make a preliminary decision within one business day whenever possible -- and always within three days at the most. A hearing is required within three days if the complaint is filed close to an election and alleges false statements in campaign material.
These are very fast turn-around times. As a result, candidates who violate the law can expect to be held accountable in time for voters to consider their actions at the polls. Just as importantly, unfounded complaints will be disposed of in a timely manner and won't damage those candidates who did nothing wrong. This quick timetable for sorting out the truth is expected to discourage violations and keep campaigns on the straight and narrow.
Clean campaigns and quick accountability are great benefits of the new law, which takes effect July 1. But there's more. We also will ease an undue burden on our criminal justice system.
In the past, county attorneys were mandated to investigate all campaign complaints for possible criminal charges -- no matter how trivial or unfounded the allegations might be. In election years, county attorney offices often were flooded with such complaints, and this drained resources from other, very serious criminal cases.
Besides burdening the criminal justice system, campaign complaints simply couldn’t be handled quickly enough by county attorney offices. The press of other criminal cases and the large volume of campaign-related complaints in some offices impeded fast action on campaign matters.
Under the new law, complaints will be handled in an expedited administrative process outside the criminal justice system. Only the most serious complaints will be sent on to county attorneys for their review. This will enable prosecutors to refocus on other priority cases.
The bill passed with strong bi-partisan support, and Governor Pawlenty signed it into law. It truly was an example of the legislative process at its best -- recognizing a problem, finding a creative solution, and setting aside partisan differences to implement a significant new public policy.
We are proud to have played roles in gaining passage of the bill. We want to thank the House co-author, Rep. Paul Thissen, DFL-Minneapolis, and the Senate author, Sen. Linda Higgins, DFL-Minneapolis, who worked very hard to get the bill passed.
For more information on the new law, we encourage you to visit the website for the Office of Administrative Hearings at this address: http://www.oah.state.mn.us/faircampaign/faircampaign.html.
Minnesotans want clean campaigns, and they want our public safety dollars to be spent wisely. That's what the 2004 Legislature accomplished with the new system for enforcing our campaign laws. It was a good move.
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(Representative Doug Meslow, R-White Bear Lake, was chief author of the legislation in the Minnesota House, and Ramsey County Attorney Susan Gaertner was a leading proponent of the measure.)