Time to crack down on politicians' disclosure gaps

Since the 1970s, candidates for Congress have been required to file annual disclosure reports of their income, assets, liabilities, and roles in any outside organizations. But enforcement has been lax. Late and flawed reports are common. More than a third of the 106 candidates for House seats from New York did not even file in the last election cycle, as Newsday spelled out with prominent display on Monday.

To be sure, many non-filers were long-shot challengers unlikely to win anyway. But incumbents aren’t immune to putting off or fumbling disclosures.

As the case of indicted fabulist Rep. George Santos shows, basic disclosures can have the public benefit of raising important red flags when recognized. In 2020, when Santos filed for his first campaign, he showed a total income of about $55,000. Two years later, he declared $750,000 in income — plus as much as $5 million in dividends from a company he owned.

The 13th count in Santos’ pending federal indictment referred to false statements about his income on his 2022 financial disclosure filing. Perhaps significantly in retrospect, Santos failed to check a box before the line for his signature certifying that statements he made on the report “are true, complete and correct.”

The House Ethics Committee reports that it tries to help members comply with investment and finance disclosures. In theory, a failure to comply with the disclosure law can carry severe penalties. Even when candidates do file properly and on time, however, the ability for outsiders to compare and analyze the information is unnecessarily cumbersome. One example: Rep. Nick LaLota’s form was mistakenly filed as LaLota Nick. That transposition rendered it tough to find online.

Beyond clerical foul-ups, though, the disclosure system lacks a searchable, sortable, and downloadable database. Alex Baumgart, a researcher for the nonpartisan nonprofit OpenSecrets website, rightly recommends change. Two obvious models are within reach: the Federal Election Commission’s system for campaign contributions and the House Clerk’s Office system for tracking lobbyist activity. Both have relatively easy sites to search and compare the filed information.

Congressional disclosure may look like a limited problem compared to the way several elected leaders make it clear they can’t be bothered to keep their conduct within prescribed guard rails. At least 13 former Trump administration officials violated the federal Hatch Act by failing to separate campaigning from their government duties, a 2021 federal probe found. There were no consequences. Also, campaign financing limits often are easily evaded when political action committees, purported to be “independent,” appear to improperly coordinate their actions with candidate committees.

The transgressions of the powerful are ignored in places like Vladimir Putin’s Russia, creating a destructive cynicism among the citizenry. Here, authorities should start fighting corruption by adopting a kind of “broken windows” theory — crack down on the small stuff as a route to addressing the larger wrongdoing.

Congressional financial disclosures make a perfect place for the House and Senate to start invoking that strategy.