Public funding would serve voters
From presidential to city politics, the race for campaign
cash is out of control. Since 1970, top-spending candidates in city elections
have won just under 90 percent of the time. Politics should be about
neighborhoods, public safety and other critical city issues rather than
big-buck campaign fund raising. “Voter owned” elections can rejuvenate
democracy by bringing more choices and new voices to Portland politics, and
reclaiming the democratic principle of one person, one vote.
Voter trust is clouded by the perception that City Hall decisions benefit
special interests more than public interests. Our City Council should remove
this thundercloud over council chambers and take the pioneering step to enact
clean-money reform. Portlanders would have voter-owned elections, and community
interests could return to center stage at City Hall.
Introduced by City
Auditor Gary Blackmer and Commissioner Erik Sten, the Clean Campaign Initiative
is a comprehensive system that provides candidates a new way to run for office
without using private, special-interest money.
To demonstrate
community support, candidates would collect a large number of $5 contributions.
Therefore, the demonstration of candidate viability would shift from the
ability to raise money to gathering broad-based “little guy” support.
Who wins? Portland
voters.
Participating candidates also would agree to strict guidelines on use of
campaign funds and then receive limited amounts of public money. Candidates
would spend time talking with constituents rather than contributors. There
would be no more campaign fund raising from people who did business with the
city.
Who wins? Portland voters.
Voters would gain more choices, because candidates could
run based on leadership ability and community support rather than fund-raising
prowess. Campaigns could focus on community issues rather than contributor
concerns.
Who wins? Portland voters.
Voter-owned elections are an incentive for incumbents and
challengers to focus on constituents rather than campaign fund raising.
Portland City Council members may have worked hard at raising money in their
first race, but as incumbents they typically face minimal opposition and raise
their funds from a smaller pool of increasingly large donors. Under voter-owned
elections incumbents and challengers operate on a level playing field.
Who wins? Portland voters.
The cost of the new clean-money system is less than 1
percent of the city budget and equivalent to $2.45 per Portland resident. Think
of it: voter-owned elections for the price of a latte. And imagine the money
we’d save by removing that special-interest thundercloud over City Hall.
Clean elections are working in Maine and Arizona. Both
states have passed important legislation to reduce prescription drug costs — a
dramatic example of what can happen when legislators are free from the influence
of big pharmaceutical money and lobbyists. While the issues are different in
City Hall, the savings potential is far greater than the cost of reform.
Marc Spitzer, a fiscal conservative elected as a Republican
under Arizona’s clean elections system for that state’s corporations
commission, says, “The question shouldn’t be how can you afford to do this, but
how can you afford not to.”
The City Council should borrow some of Spitzer’s vision and
political backbone and give Portland voter-owned elections by enacting
clean-money reform. Re-engaging voters, reinvigorating candidates and removing
campaign contributions from policy decisions — all of Portland wins with
voter-owned elections.
Janice Thompson is executive director of the Money in Politics Research Action Project. She has a degree from Carleton College in Minnesota and lives in North Portland.