April 14, 2005

Voter-Owned Elections Probable

City Council leaning toward adopting campaign finance plan

By Abe Proctor
Of The Skanner

The Portland City Council edged a little closer last week to adopting a policy that proponents say will end the influence of big-money donations on city elections and encourage more minorities, women and young people to seek public office. Opponents, however, say the system would cost the city too much at a time when city programs are already facing budget cuts.

The “voter-owned” election system — proposed by City Commissioner Erik Sten and City Auditor Gary Blackmer — would guarantee public funds to any candidate for city office who is able to collect $5 donations from at least 1,000 people (for mayoral candidates, the number is 1,500 people). For city commissioner and auditor candidates, the proposal would give $150,000 for the primary campaign and $200,000 for the general election; for mayoral candidates, the amounts are $200,000 for the primary and $250,000 for the general election. The total budget outlay would amount to about $1.3 million per year.

So far, the proposal has the support of Mayor Tom Potter; City Commissioners Sten and Sam Adams; and City Auditor Gary Blackmer. Commissioner Dan Saltzman was absent from last week’s meeting, where the proposal was discussed, but has expressed support for it. Commissioner Randy Leonard was positive toward the proposal, but wants to see how it stacks up against other budget priorities, said Marshall Runkel, Sten’s assistant.

The council will continue its deliberations on the issue next month.
Johnnie Gage, of the activist organization Oregon Action — which has worked diligently to promote voter-owned elections — said the system would open the door to African Americans, women and other traditionally underrepresented groups to run for office.

“Right now … if you can’t raise $200,000 or $300,000 or so in the primary and another couple hundred thousand in the general election, you can’t have a realistic chance of winning,” Gage said. “It really limits the field … and it limits the ideas that we have in the community.

“I believe that there are really good ideas from folks in the community, but they just don’t have the chance to run, so they stay away from the table — and that impacts voter turnout.”
Gage said he believes that if enacted, voter-owned elections will inevitably lead to more diversity in city government.

“As we were working on the (voter-owned elections) campaign … as folks came to understand it, more and more people kept saying, ‘I would really consider running,’” Gage said.

Voter-owned elections would benefit the city by eliminating the ability of businesses and other wealthy interests to use political donations to shape policy in City Hall, Runkel said.

“What (the proposal) does is to focus elections on the issues that are important to voters,” he said. “Right now, I don’t think anyone would dispute that one effect of the current campaign finance system is that elected officials spend more time on the issues that are important to the people who donate to their campaigns.”

But critics of the proposal claim that the $1.3 million annual price tag is too high, especially at a time when departments in every city bureau are tightening their belts.

“It’s a question of city priorities,” said Sandra McDonough, president of the Portland Business Alliance, the city’s greater metropolitan chamber of commerce. “Right now, we have a very tight budget in the city and all across our state. We are trying to find scarce resources to fund critical programs, and our question is — is (voter-owned elections) an appropriate priority for the city right now, when there are other programs that we’re not able to fund?”

When asked if members of the business alliance were concerned that they would lose influence in city government under a voter-owned election system, McDonough said it wasn’t an issue.

“You can’t separate the cost of a program like this from what it is,” McDonough said. “If we’re talking about using public monies to pay for election campaigns, the question has to be, at the cost of what? What are we not paying for in order to do this?”

McDonough cited the success of Mayor Potter’s recent election campaign as evidence that the current system doesn’t need to be changed. Potter limited his contributions to $100 dollars each, and won the election despite being out-funded by his opponent, then-City Commissioner Jim Francesconi, by the score of $1.1 million to $234,000.

“We’ve seen with Mayor Potter … a man who was able to finance his election on a very low campaign budget,” she said. “There’s a lot of different ways to influence City Hall.”

Runkel, of Sten’s office, disagreed that the cost of voter-owned elections would be prohibitive.

“Every city bureau would kick in a portion of the $1.3 million per year,” Runkel said. “So bureau by bureau, it’s a pretty small amount.”

What is important, Runkel said, is not what the system costs but the confidence and participation it would inspire in voters.

“When we look back,” Runkel said, “I think people are going to be shocked that we ever had a campaign system that relied upon wealthy donors.”