Senate Panel Clears Presidential Library Disclosure Bill
On August 1, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee approved H.R. 1254, the “Presidential Donation Reform Act of 2007.” On March 14, 2007, the House of Representatives approved a similar bill by a vote of 390-34. The bill passed by the Senate panel would make changes from the House-passed version with regard to the triggering amount of a donation requiring disclosure and the length of time the presidential library must report contributions.
Presidential libraries are built using private funds raised by organizations working on behalf of the president. Under current law, donations for the presidential library can be unlimited in size and are not required to be disclosed. Organizations that raise funds for presidential libraries typically begin fundraising while the president remains in office. Before the library is turned over to the National Archives, these organizations must raise enough money to build the library and to provide the Archivist with an endowment for the maintenance of the facility. One of the concerns the bill is designed to remedy is the fact that foreign nationals can make unlimited contributions to a sitting, or former, president’s library. This is in contrast to federal election laws which prohibit contributions by foreign nationals.
Read entire article at Lee White at the website of the National Coalition for History (NCH)
Presidential libraries are built using private funds raised by organizations working on behalf of the president. Under current law, donations for the presidential library can be unlimited in size and are not required to be disclosed. Organizations that raise funds for presidential libraries typically begin fundraising while the president remains in office. Before the library is turned over to the National Archives, these organizations must raise enough money to build the library and to provide the Archivist with an endowment for the maintenance of the facility. One of the concerns the bill is designed to remedy is the fact that foreign nationals can make unlimited contributions to a sitting, or former, president’s library. This is in contrast to federal election laws which prohibit contributions by foreign nationals.