Bentley Hensel, a practitioner-turned congressional candidate, is on a mission to increase campaign finance transparency. As part of his independent run for House in Virginia’s 8th district, Hensel has released an app called SunBeam that allows his campaign to publish in real time information about its donations. It also allows for his campaign to share that data with the FEC on a weekly basis as opposed to quarterly.
Now, Hensel’s long-shot indie bid isn’t exactly getting flooded with donations. It’s only received four to date, according to the data it has published. But the app and his push for greater transparency is highlighting a question that has lingered in the industry since the Supreme Court started the erosion of McCain-Feingold in 2010: What does campaign finance reform look like in 2024?
Hensel pictures a world where campaign finance limits on candidate campaigns are lifted, but reporting requirements are imposed so that candidates can raise unlimited funds but have to report those contributions daily. “If you can give whatever you want directly to a campaign, it’ll be easier that way, and it’ll be more transparent.”
Now, he notes that under current FEC regulations, campaigns can do what they want with their data. That’s what allows rev shares on the donation platforms. So could a campaign submit and publish campaign finance reports before the FEC deadlines? Sure, the commission’s attorneys told Hensel. “There’s really nothing keeping campaigns from being more transparent except themselves.”
Hensel’s quixotic effort has also raised another interesting question. Because his open-source app was produced by his campaign, if others opt-in to using it, there would be a question about whether that would count as an in-kind donation Hensel is making to the other candidate’s effort. Hensel said he’s currently waiting on an advisory opinion from the FEC as to whether others can use SunBeam. “No campaign has ever written open-source code and released it publicly for another campaign to use,” he said. “They [the FEC] don’t know if that counts as an in-kind contribution or not.”
He expects the FEC to rule that use of the app by other campaigns is not an in-kind donation, since that could throw into question campaigns using applications like WordPress, which is an open source software. In addition to getting others to use his app, he’s also hoping to spark a greater conversation around transparency in campaign fundraising.
“My hope is to get a few campaigns involved, start doing this, and then the voters demand this,” he said.
