The party at the stately stone mansion in Northwest Washington had all the trappings of a campaign fundraiser. Men in union jackets directed traffic on tight residential streets. Volunteers with clipboards met guests on the front lawn to take names and collect pledges. In a white tent on the backyard tennis court, council member Adrian M. Fenty told the crowd what he would do as mayor.
But Fenty (D-Ward 4) has yet to officially call himself a candidate. So the party was not a campaign fundraiser under D.C. law. And the money collected that frigid night early this month -- nearly $100,000 -- need never be reported as campaign contributions.
Adrian M. Fenty attends an exploratory fundraiser in Mount Pleasant. Since Fenty has yet to officially call himself a mayoral candidate, money from such events does not have to be reported.
(Marvin Joseph -- The Washington Post)
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Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) is considering leaving the office at the end of his second term, and a crowded field of politicians, lawyers and executives is lining up to replace him. No one has announced firm intentions to run next year. But with the election nearly two years off, Fenty and three others -- former D.C. Democratic Party chairman A. Scott Bolden, lawyer Michael A. Brown and council member Vincent B. Orange Sr. (D-Ward 5) -- have kick-started the race by forming exploratory committees.
Under D.C. law, the committees can accept unlimited sums of money from unidentified donors to set up offices, hire consultants, conduct polls, court voters and pay for other activities aimed at helping them decide whether they are viable contenders. The four committees have raised nearly $300,000 in contributions, which legally does not need to be made public.
Fenty said he expects to haul in $10,000 from a second fundraiser held yesterday in Mount Pleasant. Last night, Bolden solicited his supporters at a gathering at the Lansburgh apartments downtown.
Government watchdog groups say they have never seen so much unregulated cash pouring into city politics.
"We have no idea how much money these people are raising, where they're raising it, or what they're doing with it," said DCWatch Executive Director Dorothy Brizill. "Something needs to be done."
Experts on state campaign finance laws said they believe that the District might be the only jurisdiction in the nation that doesn't require disclosure of exploratory contributions.
"In most states, if you start collecting money for a campaign purpose, you have to start reporting. It's either a campaign contribution or it's a gift. There's no Neverland," said Robert M. Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies, a nonpartisan research organization in Los Angeles. "This just makes a mockery of disclosure laws."
Darrell M. West, a political science professor at Brown University, described the D.C. law as "ripe for abuse."
"It raises a lot of serious ethical issues because the money is not accounted for and not disclosed. That is a bad situation," West said.
Federal law, too, permits candidates to test the waters behind a veil of secrecy. But contributions are limited to $2,000 each and must be reported once a formal declaration of candidacy is made.
Under D.C. law, exploratory committees are not considered campaign committees, so contributions are unlimited. They must be reported only if the money is transferred to a regular campaign account. The law does not require candidates to return or otherwise account for unused cash.
Fenty, Bolden, Orange and Brown generally defended the exploratory process, saying the law limits use of the money to such pre-campaign activities as polling and focus groups. Though they are not required to file campaign finance reports, they are required to keep records of contributions and turn those records over to campaign finance officials in the event of a complaint.
