Pelican State News

Former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the national chairman of the Election Transparency Initiative (ETI), is urging the Louisiana state Senate to pass a bill that would ban private funding of election offices. If the bill clears the Senate by a two-thirds margin, Louisiana voters will have the opportunity to vote on the referendum during this October's statewide election.

ETI, an organization that promotes state-based election reforms, noted on its website that House Bill 311 passed the Louisiana House of Representatives last month with bipartisan support, and if approved would prohibit the use of money from foreign governments, ideological groups and corporations to fund elections in the state.

“Elections should never be privatized in Louisiana or anywhere else," Cuccinelli said in a statement. "We applaud the House for quickly re-upping this critical issue following the governor’s politically motivated veto and ongoing Left-wing efforts to obstruct meaningful election integrity. If not curtailed, the ‘Zuckerbucks’ campaign financing scheme used for partisan voter outreach will continue to disenfranchise voters who question whether our elections are conducted with fairness and honesty."

Cuccinelli, in his statement, also urged State Sen. Sharon Hewitt, R-Slidell, chairwoman of the Senate & Government Affairs Committee, to block potential influence by Zuckerberg and others and allow voters to determine the issue at the polls by moving on H.B. 311.

"Every election law should be adhered to as written, and everyone should play by the same set of rules—that is the certainty voters deserve," he added in the statement.

"This bill passed out of my committee today,” Hewitt said in a post on social media after Cuccinelli’s statement was released. “It is now headed to the Senate floor."

According to the organization's post, the text of the amended Louisiana Constitution would state, "No funds, goods, or services donated by a foreign government or a nongovernmental source shall be used to conduct elections unless provided for in the election code and subject to restrictions provided by general law."

ETI also showed that Gov. John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, vetoed a similar proposal two years ago that would have prohibited the use of private money in state election offices. The organization noted on its website that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife made donations totaling hundreds of millions of dollars during the 2020 election cycle.

The donations by the Zukerbergs, according to the ETI report, were then directed to nonprofits such as the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), and those organizations in turn funneled money to election jurisdictions in virtually every state.

Moreover, ETI also reported the donations were targeted to Democrat-leaning areas by a 2:1 margin, with more than $1 million finding its way to Louisiana.