Miniview with Carol Liu, Candidate for the 21st Senate District

By Centinel
The Foothill Cities Blog

I recently had the chance to digitally converse with Carol Liu, the de facto Democratic candidate for the 21st SD. The former mayor and assemblywoman is unopposed in the Democratic primary, and seems likely to succeed the termed-out Jack Scott, so rather than let her coast on up to Sacramento, I fired a couple questions her way last week. Ms. Liu was kind enough to respond and respond thoughtfully, which gives the FC Blog a reason to add to the cacophony of interviews echoing around the local blogosphere.

And so, without further ado…

Centinel: Do you feel that there should be greater consistency and transparency in the reporting of local and state campaign finance information? On the 460 forms filed in the most recent Pasadena City Council election cycle (for Steve Madison and Jacque Robinson), your occupation is listed as “housewife.” However, your contributions to national races have your occupation listed as a lecturer for the UC Goldman School of Public Policy. In your case, I doubt anyone would be confused, but couldn’t that kind of inconsistency undermine the effectiveness campaign finance disclosure laws, when most donors don’t have your kind of name recognition?

Liu: First, let me say that your recent focus on contributions to council members has been a service to the community and has occasioned a lot of comment and discussion. On the main issue, I strongly support disclosure and transparency and yes, inconsistencies and omissions are a problem. But there is another side to this issue that is well-illustrated by the data you cite for my own contributions.

For most of the last two years I have not been employed outside the
home (though I’ll admit that “housewife,” as admirable an occupation as that is, isn’t really descriptive of my activities!). However, for the fall semester of last year I taught a class at UC Berkeley. So all the reports are correct for the time periods they covered despite the apparent discrepancies. This is a good example of how difficult it is to get and maintain accurate data on hundreds of donors over time.

Larger campaigns, like mine, generally hire specialized firms, at
considerable expense, to handle this — yet mistakes are still made. Smaller, local campaigns often still try to do this with volunteers, who are likely to make more errors.

Unfortunately, one trade-off for our more detailed campaign reporting
requirements (and penalties) nowadays is that we’re making it nearly impossible for volunteers to handle traditional campaign tasks any more. This simply accelerates the professionalization (and the cost) of running for local office, and I’m not sure that’s what any of us intended when we pushed for better regulation and disclosure. It’s a problem, and I wish I had a good answer for it.

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