By Robb Crocker

"Virginia is to campaign finance as the Cayman Islands are to banking."

That’s how Steve Calos, executive director of Common Cause of Virginia, described the state’s anything-goes policies on donations and gifts to politicians.

"Virginia is interesting because they don’t regulate contributions," he told VCU’s Legislative Reporting class recently. He said politicians can accept unlimited donations from groups, businesses and individuals – as long as the officials disclose the contributions on public filings.

Money and gifts may not exactly buy a politician’s support, Calos said. But he said they open doors, ensuring that donors will have an opportunity to state their case to lawmakers.

"Money does buy access," Calos said. "Access is the gateway to influence, and the fellow with all the money is almost always going to prevail" in a legislative dispute.

When a lobbyist takes a legislator on a hunting trip, for example, "he has a captive audience," Calos said. "He knows, 'I'm going to be able to score some points.'" The typical consumer "doesn't have the same access, the same influence," Calos said.

He said there is "no smoking gun" to show that legislators have traded votes for gifts or campaign contributions. But many people believe such influence peddling happens, Calos said, citing a survey a few years ago by Old Dominion University. "People believe something unseemly is going on. They see lobbyists giving donations, giving gifts and getting results."

Calos does not consider lobbying a dirty word. Indeed, he himself is a lobbyist – but you won’t find him wining and dining legislators or taking them on hunting trips. "We don’t give gifts – we work through the media," he said.

Calos does his lobbying on behalf of Common Cause, a government watchdog group founded after the Watergate scandal in the 1970s.

Common Cause has about 250,000 members nationally. The group advocates open, ethical and accountable government, Calos said.

The Virginia organization focuses on state and local issues. For example, Calos said his group supported a bill before the General Assembly that would require instate electronic filing of large political contributions. Currently, candidates can wait until after an election to reveal such donations.

Some legislators say the bill would be unfair because they don’t have computers to file their reports, Calos said. He said that’s just an excuse: "You have these clowns claiming they don’t have a computer or the means to legibly present their reports."

Calos also wants politicians to provide more details about how they spend campaign money. He said some legislators are unemployed and "play games" with campaign contributions and gifts, personally benefiting from such donations.

"Some of these guys are really shameless – they’ll take tailor-made clothes, etc., " Calos said.

He also wants the state to review legislators’ campaign finance reports – at least a sampling of them – to make sure they’re accurate.

In Congress, campaign finance proposals often split along party lines. Not so in Virginia, Calos said. "Some of our best supporters are conservative Republicans and some are liberal Democrats."