City Ponders Clean Races     (11/11/2004)

The Rev. Carrie Bolton

The Rev. Carrie Bolton to advise on campaign reform

By Helen Silvis
Of The Skanner

Pastor, social worker, doctor of divinity, mother and genuine North Carolina firebrand: these are just a few of the words that describe the Rev. Carrie Bolton. The civil rights advocate has a resume as long as your arm and a truckload of awards for her civic work.

This week, the Rev. Bolton will visit Portland. She will be attending a special breakfast dialogue for ministers and other leaders in the faith community Friday morning, before addressing the City Club of Portland, where she will talk about changing the way we finance city elections. The issue is a live one, since three of Portland’s City Commissioners — Erik Sten, Mayor-elect Tom Potter and Sam Adams — have pledged to take the big money out of city campaigns before the next elections.

But with the 2004 campaign just over, don’t citizens need a break from elections?

“I may have a minority voice here, but I believe this is the best time possible,” the Rev. Bolton told The Skanner. “I think this is the perfect storm, and I particularly believe that it is the right time for African Americans and other people of color to make our voices heard.

“All over the country people of color came out and they voted, they voted passionately. Sure we did not put in a new president this time, but we sent a resounding message — and African Americans percentage-wise more than any other ethnic group — that we are not happy with the way this country is going.”

Bolton believes that taking big money out of politics would clear the way for more African Americans to run for office — and succeed. It also allows politicians to pay more attention to the needs of average citizens, she said.

“When wealthy persons and corporations contribute to campaigns, they very often get special privileges in terms of how those elected officials vote and in terms of attention to their concerns,” the Rev. Bolton said. “Those are not privileges offered to poor people and especially people of color.”

Not everyone agrees that money corrupts the political process, however.

“This has been a liberal cause for several years now, and it’s based on the notion that money corrupts politics,” said Bill Sizemore, president of Oregon Taxpayers United, an anti-tax organization. “In fact money does not corrupt politics. It has been declared by the courts to be constitutionally protected free speech. It has been my experience, over the years, that people do not donate money to get politicians to do what they want, they donate money to people who are already philosophically aligned with their position. There is no quid pro quo — 90 percent of the time there is no quid pro quo.”

City Auditor Gary Blackmer has been studying how so-called “clean campaign finance” or “voter-owned” elections work in Maine and Arizona. Blackmer is just now completing a proposal that he plans to take to City Council early next year. Under the proposal, candidates who agree to limit the size of private contributions would receive funds from the city to run their campaigns. To those who ask why citizens’ tax money should pay for campaigns, Blackmer offers several reasons.

“In terms of the city’s budget the cost of this is less than two tenths of 1 percent,” he said. “That’s extremely small related to the overall city budget. “When you consider that city leaders are responsible for the $1.7 billion plus city budget, that’s not a lot to spend.

“If we are to make sure we get people who are best able to represent the community and make wise decisions, then one part of 1 percent is, I think, a wise investment.”

Blackmer will discuss the proposal at the City Club alongside the Rev. Bolton and Arizona Corporations Commissioner Marc Spitzer. Spitzer, former Republican leader of the Arizona Senate, is a convert to the idea of voter-owned elections. A fiscal conservative, he will argue that the proposal saves public money.

“The question is not whether you can afford to do it, but whether you can afford not to,” Spitzer told a California newspaper. “I spent four years in the Arizona state Senate. I understand the difficulty in crafting a state budget, particularly in light of a structural deficit that appears to compel reductions in programs, tax increases or both. But the necessity of legislators raising money from special interest groups, all with a finger in the political pie, makes it that much harder to achieve the proper balance that is at the heart of good government.”

Since the legislation passed in Arizona, voter turnout has increased, and more minorities, women and people without big bank accounts have stepped forward to run for office.
James Posey, a mayoral candidate in this year’s primary elections, said Portlanders will see a better caliber of politicians, if the ability to raise large amounts of money becomes less important.

“When I ran for mayor it would have been easier to put together a professional staff to get my message out,” Posey said. “I spent a lot of time worrying, lying awake wondering how I was going to pay for everything.

“If we had campaign finance I probably wouldn’t have needed to run because people who are smarter, brighter and more qualified than me would be running. There would be more Black people running, people with integrity and a sense of what this city really needs — but they get clobbered by millions of dollars. It really does level the playing field.”

According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research group, nationally less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the U.S. population gave 83 percent of all campaign contributions for the 2002 elections. Jamaal Folsom, a consultant to the Money in Politics Research Action Project, which co-sponsored Bolton’s visit, said under the current system politicians are beholden to their financial backers.

“Having worked in city hall, I’ve seen how the process works and how decisions are made,” Folsom said. “It’s not always in the best interest of the public. Politicians shouldn’t have to choose between making decisions in the best interests of their constituents and making decisions that serve the interests of those who are lining their pockets. In my opinion this is one reason why the African American community has been disengaged — there’s a cloud of mistrust that lies over city hall.”

Folsom added, “We’ve got an all-White, all-male City Council right now — don’t get me wrong, they are all good people — but that doesn’t represent the city I live in.”

Sizemore thinks that public funding of elections would make little difference on the way the system currently works.
“I think if you gave the voters the choice statewide they’d say — I’d say, in fact — ‘Let the politicians use their own money.,’ ” Sizemore said. “Don’t use my tax dollars to support someone I politically oppose.

“There is a constitutionally protected right for candidates to spend as much of their money as they like, so having a public election would be pretty much meaningless if one or more of the candidates was independently wealthy.”

The Rev. Bolton said she first realized the importance of the issue 15 years ago, during a city commissioner’s race in a small town in North Carolina. One strong candidate who was very active in the community, dedicated and hardworking, lost out to a candidate who had spent little time in the community but could raise large sums of money to pay for brochures and television ads.

Bolton said that judicial races — now run under clean finance rules in her home state of North Carolina — are equally important to minority voters. As a pastor, accompanying some young members of her congregation to court hearings, she saw them receive stiffer penalties than the mostly White defendants who could afford to hire expensive defense attorneys.

“Imagine an attorney standing before a judge,” Bolton said. “And that attorney made a $5,000 contribution to that judge’s campaign. There’s no way you can tell me the judge isn’t going to pay more attention to that attorney than to the court-appointed attorney he doesn’t know.

“With voter-owned elections judges can apply justice in a way that lives up to its name of being blind.”

Some Black leaders argue that African Americans simply have to dig deep and make their contributions count. Bolton disagrees. “Why, in a democracy, does there need to be so much money just to enter the race?” she asked.

“I’m very excited to spend time in Portland,” she added. “If we can get some of the money out of politics and into the mouths of hungry children, help undereducated children, that would be quite a feat.”

Pastors interested in attending the breakfast dialogue with the Rev. Bolton should contact Jamaal Folsom, 503-283-1922.

City Club of Portland Friday Forum: Nov. 12, Governor Hotel, 614 S.W. 11th Ave. Doors open at 11:30 a.m.; program runs from 12:15 to 1:15 p.m. Luncheon tickets are $16 for members, $18 for nonmembers. Coffee/tea tickets are $5 at the door. General seating is free to members, $5for nonmembers.