It should be an easy task, gathering lists of campaign donors in both state and federal office races. It is, after all, public information. Any member of the press should have total access to donor lists in any state in the Union. But unless you can physically get yourself to these locations, there are major impediments.

First, the good news: www.commoncause.com, www.opensecrets.com, www.fec.com have the federal data on-line and www.followthemoney.com collects data from individual states (though they're by no means complete). So part of the problem is dissolved by these Web sites which let you look up specific donors and recipients. But try a state like Maine or Arkansas ñ call and asked them for the donor lists and they say they'll do it, but only when they're ready. I just got off the phone with the head of the Maine Election's commission (or ethical division or whatever they call it) who chewed me out for sending an e-mail to one of his subordinates explaining to her that my request shouldn't be considered "not too high priority" as I am working for a national media outlet on deadline. "Don't give me FOIA (the freedom of information act) explained the rude gent on the phone.

Translation: "your deadline be damned, we'll get to this in good time." Oh, and they'll charge .40 cents per photocopied page. I was not asking his staff to do any research, of course. I was asking them to pull files, copy them and mail them to me. That the state of Maine would charge .40 cents per page is ridiculous. Arkansas will also not guarantee a speedy answer and they want .25 cent per copied page. This is what you'll find around the country. The information is public, but it isn't free and it isn't necessarily timely. Also, Arkansas will do half the research and contact you, after they've done half they want a check Fed-exed to them and they won't do the other half until the check clears. Nobody in the commercial sector charges .40 cents a page for photocopies. It's ridiculous and should be stopped.

Translation: the law says you have access to this stuff, but it doesn't say you should have easy access. Impeded access is, of course, not really access. But it does explain why we don't have better political coverage in this country. Of course, citizens should have free access to this information and they shouldn't have to drive to their state capitols to personally see the documents. On issues like campaign financing it is the responsibility of government to bend over backwards and to meet all requests in a timely and constructive manner, timely as defined by the needs of the requester, not the whims of the agency.

One of the most important thing a government controls is information about itself. Every dealing with a state or federal government office requires a bit of faith. We must trust that they're being honest and I am frankly not so paranoid that I believe they lie. Maine will send me the info I requested and I believe it will be complete and unaltered. I believe the people within the elections offices of the various states are ambivalent towards providing requested information. There's little at stake for them as they aren't elected to their posts and their not the types who will lose their jobs when administrations change.

But lawmakers would like to keep the campaign financing process mysterious, so they've created underfunded and understaffed departments to handle reams of donor lists and given them a rather loose mandate to provide information to interested sources in the public. Who denies the funding which would let these agencies ask for less than .40 cents a photocopy? The governors and legislatures in the various states.

Contrast this with the federal system. The FEC has a web site and candidates file electronically. The Securities and Exchange Commission has a web site and most filings are done electronically so they are instantly available to the public. This is how information should flow in the year 2000. So when are we going to create a federal law which demands that local candidates also file their donor lists electronically and that such information should be available for immediate public inspection? Of all the campaign finance reform ideas I've heard in recent years this strikes me as the most important. I want to know from who, to who, how much, and when and I want to know now.

Michael Maiello was starting to like government offices until he asked to see who got their bosses elected.