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Council to take up public financing

MATTHEW DeFOUR
February 26, 2007

Madison could become the third city in the nation to conduct "clean elections" under a proposal being introduced to the City Council tonight.

Council President Austin King is sponsoring a resolution that would express the city's support for full public financing of aldermanic, mayoral and judicial races. A committee with members from the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, Common Cause in Wisconsin, the League of Women Voters of Dane County and two citizens appointed by the mayor would hammer out the details of the system, which could be in place by the aldermanic election in spring 2009.

King said he would support a system, similar to what Portland, Ore., and Albuquerque, N.M., have adopted, in which candidates on a voluntary basis could raise a certain amount in small contributions of $5 to $10 to qualify for public finances. City council candidates could be eligible for $5,000 and mayoral candidates could receive $100,000, which would be comparable to each position's annual stipend, King said.

"There are a lot of open questions about a policy like this, which is why we want to call on the expertise of reform groups in crafting the details of the policy," King said.

A dozen other cities, including New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, have partial public financing. Seven states have full public financing for state-wide elections.

Portland changed its campaign finance rules only two years ago, but there were some "key findings" in the 2006 election cycle, said Janice Thompson, executive director of the Oregon-based Money in Politics Research Action Project.

Before last year, 69 percent of campaign donations to the Portland City Council and mayoral candidates came from 7 percent of donors writing checks for more than $1,000. In 2006, candidates collected $5 contributions from all over the city to qualify for public finances. Mayor Dave Cieslewicz has endorsed the proposal as a way to show other municipalities that public campaign financing can work.

Some are skeptical, however. Mayoral candidate Ray Allen said he supported comprehensive campaign finance reform, but any ordinance would need to protect the right to free speech.

Ald. Paul Skidmore, 9th District, said he would not support the resolution because it implies that the state's current campaign finance rules, which limit donations to $250 per individual in his race, leads to influence peddling.

"That's kind of the undertone that I'm hearing from this resolution," Skidmore said. "Somehow if a developer gives more than $5, that's bad."

King said he would "love to hear the Pollyanna logic that these campaign contributions come with no expectation of particular action."