A much needed campaign finance reform headed our way

Yesterday, Wispolitics had this:

Candidates will have to disclose what they acquired with credit cards, not how much they paid to them, under an action today by the state Elections Board."They will need to provide the same level of details as if written a check to all the individual vendors," said Elections Board Director Kevin Kennedy. "The staff felt we needed to have more disclosure but we needed the backing of the board on that, and they agreed."

It's about time. I have no idea why the supposed watchdog groups of campaign finance have not been sounding the alarm on this one.

If you have ever looked at a campaign finance report, this jumps out at you as a potential abuse very fast. I've seen campaign finance reports with lines that just say "Mastercard bill - $1300.00". What in the world are they buying with that kind of money and why did it take the Elections Board so long to ask?

They could be buying stamps, paper, and other needed things for the campaign. They could be going out to lavish dinners paid for by campaign donors.

One of the worst abusers of this loophole I ever came across was former State Senator Bob Welch. He had numerous credit cards and gas cards that he paid money to from his campaign account. He paid thousands of dollars to them over and over. What did he buy with all that money? We'll never know.

But there are current users of this loophole too. Attorney General Candidate Paul Bucher has numerous payments to a campaign credit card for large amounts of money. He has listed a payment of over $600 and one for over $700 with no details of what it is other than "campaign credit card". He has numerous other payments like that as well.

His opponent, J. B. Van Hollen has what looks like credit card payments but he goes the extra mile to detail what the payments are for on his report.

No candidate should get to say they spent hundreds of dollars and not tell the people what they have purchased with that money. It's high time the Elections Board close this loophole.