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The Kansas Statehouse in Topeka.

TOPEKA – Kansas lawmakers may be asked next year to broaden a state law so that voters will be able to know who is sending out and who is paying for certain kinds of campaign material that is not directly related to any candidate’s campaign.

The Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission will decide next month whether to include that as one of its recommendations for the 2019 Legislature to consider.

Under current law, outside organizations have to provide that information only if they engage in “express advocacy” in a campaign for state or local office or ballot initiatives. Express advocacy is defined in statutes as expressly advocating for the election or defeat of an identifiable candidate or ballot issue.

As the law is currently written, that occurs only if the organization uses key phrases such as “vote for,” “vote against,” “support,” “oppose” or words to that effect in reference to an identifiable candidate or ballot measure.

But Mark Skoglund, executive director of the ethics commission, said that many organizations, on both sides of the political spectrum, get around that law simply by avoiding those catch phrases.

“Regardless of someone’s political persuasion, there are mailers on all sides of the aisle that currently are not subject to disclosure requirements,” Skoglund said during an interview after Wednesday’s commission meeting. “They’re not subject to independent expenditure disclosures. They’re not even subject to paid-for attribution requirements, and it’s because typically they avoid these sorts of buzz words.”

Skoglund is recommending that the commission include among its legislative requests next year that lawmakers broaden the definition of express advocacy to include anything that “is subject to no reasonable interpretation other than that it is to support or oppose a candidate for office.”

If lawmakers were to approve that change, it would either force those outside groups to change the way they engage in independent campaigning or force them to start filing disclosure statements identifying themselves and detailing how much they spend on the advertising and where the money comes from.

Skoglund said he couldn’t immediately say whether the change would require those groups to identify all of their donors or just those who paid for a particular piece of advertising.

He also declined to cite specific examples of post cards or other kinds of advertising that would fall into that category, saying that if lawmakers agree to the change, it will be up to the commission to issue advisory opinions and make rulings on a case-by-case basis.

He did, however, say it would not apply to “issue advocacy,” which includes advertising designed to promote a position on a certain issue but not a particular candidate’s position on that issue.

The Governmental Ethics Commission will decide in November whether to include the proposed change in its 2019 legislative agenda.