The Missouri Ethics Commission is offering a new tool to give Missourians a look at how money is flowing in and out of some candidates’ campaigns.
Executive Director Julie Allen says the Candidate By Election search on the Commission’s website offers financial summaries on state and local races.
“It’s just an easy to read snapshot of the candidate’s financial information … for any upcoming elections, you can easily go to that election and see which candidates have filed with our office and all of the candidate’s financial information.”
The latest information comes from the April quarterly report. Two more reports will be issued before the August primary.
“There’s a July quarterly, which will be due on the sixteenth of July, and then for those participating in the August primary election there’s an eight day before, that actually is due July 30.”
With the various tools on the Commission’s website, Allen says voters can learn a lot.
“We also have another good search called ‘Committee Expenditures for Candidates.’ You can type in a candidate’s last name and it’s going to show you the money that is reported as spent to either support or oppose a candidate, and normally that would be coming from a PAC, a Political Action Committee.”
Allen things many Missouri voters want to know this kind of information.
“It gives good transparency for the public. If a regular citizen is interested in knowing what the difference candidates in a specific race are spending their money on or how much money they’re receiving, this gives them a quick snapshot of all the candidates.”