The West Virginia Senate approved a bill Monday that will stop the public from accessing certain information about people who donate to political candidates and campaigns.
Senate Bill 640 passed the body 31-2, with one member absent and not voting. Sens. Joey Garcia, D-Marion, and Mike Woelfel, D-Cabell — the only two Democrats in the body — were the only members to vote against the bill.
As it’s written, SB 640 would stop the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office or any other government agency from publicly posting information that some lawmakers say could be used by advocates to target political donors.
Information that would be redacted includes the donor’s street address — including the house number and street name — and their employer or “major business affiliation.” Major business affiliation is defined in the proposed code to be the “entity” from which someone “derives the majority” of their income. Current law requires that all of this information is filed and made public on campaign contribution forms when a donor gives more than $250 during a single election cycle.
City and county information for donors as well as their general professions — i.e. consultant, doctor, lawyer, teacher, etc. — would still be listed under the proposed code.
The bill is sponsored by Sen. Mike Azinger, R-Wood, who said that while the bill does limit what information is available to the public about where campaign donations are coming from, its intent is not to decrease transparency. Instead, he said, the proposed legislation aims to protect donors from being harassed at their jobs for giving money to potentially “controversial” candidates.
“This is simply protecting these givers. You should be able to donate to somebody you believe in, or to a cause you believe in, in this state and in this country without having to be concerned about this kind of unjust retribution,” Azinger said. “This is a bill that protects people that want to give to controversial candidates, like me.”
Garcia, who was the only one to speak against the bill during Monday’s floor session, said some of the information that would be redacted should be accessible to the public. He agreed that information like a home address is unnecessary to be posted publicly, but knowing who someone is employed by can provide context about what a candidate could support if they win office or who is potentially funding their election.
“So you know the old phrase goes, ‘Democracy dies in darkness.’ I cannot support a bill that’s going to darken and shadow where people are getting their money from,” Garcia said. “[A donor’s employer] is important information that can help us decide or at least see why people might be leaning one way or the other.”
Azinger agreed that Garcia’s concerns regarding SB 640 were “not illegitimate.” He believes the benefit that comes with protecting donors, however, outweighs the potential risks that decreased transparency would bring.
“It’s not that you don’t have a point,” Azinger told Garcia. “There is a point there, but the better point is that we want to protect givers, and this bill does that.”
While the information would be redacted for public viewing, it would still be submitted and held by the Secretary of State’s Office. If the Secretary of State or another government agency publishes the identifying information, they must remove it within 10 business days of being notified by the individual. If the information is not redacted publicly within that timeframe, the individual is eligible to recover $1,000 in civil penalties from the agency responsible for posting it.
Anyone who “knowingly and willfully” posts the identifiable information publicly could face misdemeanor charges. Per the code, they could face up to a $1,000 fine and/or be sentenced to up to a year in jail.
According to the proposed bill, the new guidelines for publicly posting campaign finance information would go into effect after the 2026 primary and general elections. They would not be applied retroactively to campaign finance reports already available through the Secretary of State’s Office for previous elections.
Following the Senate’s passage of SB 640, the bill will advance to the House for consideration. A similar piece of legislation — House Bill 5066 — is already making its way through the House of Delegates, where it’s currently in the markup stage of the House Judiciary Committee.
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