And from now on legislators and other elected officials will have to pay all but $100 for season tickets to University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University football games.
Both proposed rules drafted by the state Ethics Commission take effect Tuesday.
Legislators this past session allowed the rules to go into effect by not taking action to defeat them. Violators face punishment ranging from a public scolding to paying a fine.
The PAC regulation is intended to allow people to know all of a candidate's contributors. It also is intended to make sure the money a contributor gives to a political action committee stays with that group and is not given to another committee that may have opposing views.
"You could build a whole empire of PACs, one contributing to the next and so forth, like water pouring down into one trough into the next one and so on,” said Jim Davis, an OSU professor of American and applied politics. "That makes one person really able to give a whole lot of money because each of the PACs could give the ($5,000) limit.
"This is innovation and I'm glad to see it coming out of Oklahoma,” Davis said. "Notice it didn't come out of the legislature, which was afraid to object I think. It came out of a government agency.”
Under the old rules, the original contributor of money can become hidden, said Marilyn Hughes, executive director of the state Ethics Commission.
"You could just go on in perpetuity trying to find out who the real contributors were,” Hughes said. "If the PAC is able to give to several other PACs, then you lose the identity.”
Hughes said the practice of political action committees giving to other political action committees increased significantly during the 2004 elections.
"It had happened in previous years, but it seemed to mushroom that year,” she said. "That has a lot to do with the struggle for the majority in the House and that struggle, of course, is continuing on with the struggle for the majority in the Senate which is evenly divided now.”
How the rule was developed
Republicans gained control of the House in 2004 for the first time in 80 years. Republicans came close in 2006 to taking over the Senate for the first time in Oklahoma history and the GOP is trying to maintain its majority in the House.
Because of the power struggle in both legislative chambers, supporters had to find ways to donate more money than the $5,000 limit that was set for individuals.
Individuals could get around that limit by giving to different political action committees, which funneled the money to candidates.
The proposal o
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