Washington candidates, campaigning on your dime
Public campaign financing might be on the ballot this November in Seattle and King County. While most people speak of public financing as a "cleaner" way to fund political campaigns, it remains to be seen whether it alone can create beacons of good government. The only compelling case to be made is that it diversifies the candidate roster.
If you live in the Seattle area, that complete bozo running for office — the fat-cat conservative, the latte-sipping liberal dweeb, the wacked out white supremacist — may soon be campaigning with your tax dollars. And that may be a good thing. The alternative might be having the same bozo running with special interest funds. And if access to money no longer filters people out of politics, the ballot may be more likely to include someone who's not a bozo at all.
At the national level, some people fear that public financing of political campaigns may be an idea whose time is about to pass. When Barack Obama announced last week that he would forgo public funds in order to raise maximum cash on his own, The New York Times expressed worry that 2008 might be remembered not only for Obama's and Hillary Clinton's historic candidacies, but also as "the year public financing died."
In this Washington, however, 2008 may be remembered as the year public financing gets a new lease on life. This spring, the state legislature made it legal for any local government — except a school district — to offer its voters a referendum on the public funding of campaigns. Seattle and King County voters might vote next November. An advisory committee has recommended Seattle do exactly that, for a public finance system to take effect in 2011.
The advisory committee could have recommended putting it on the ballot this fall, but Seattle lawyer (and former Wisconsin legislator) Michele Radosevich, who chaired it, explained shortly before the report came out that the issue had drawn virtually no public attention, this fall's ballot will be crowded, and the chances of educating people about public funding between now and November were slim.
Current ignorance notwithstanding, once upon a time both Seattle and King County put public money into campaigns. In 1978, the Seattle City Council passed an ordinance that established the nation's first public financing system, and 11 years later, King County established a public financing system of its own. Then, in 1992, there was a campaign-finance-reform initiative pushed by conservative state senator — and later congresswoman — Linda Smith, specifically outlawing public financing. (Smith's Initiative 134 won support from a number of big corporations but opposition from liberal interest groups.)
Public funding supporters — including the statewide advocacy group, Washington Public Campaigns — tried repeatedly to get a new bill through the legislature. This spring, they finally succeeded — although not quite as they had hoped. Washington Public Campaigns had drafted a bill that would have permitted public funding of all local elections, period. That didn't fly; the legislature insisted on a referendum in any jurisdiction that wanted to try it.
Faced with a referendum, why should the people vote "Yes?" Neither Seattle nor King County became a shining beacon of good government during its brief experience with public financing. No one points to Arizona and Maine, the two states that have had the longest experience with public financing, or to the cities of Portland and San Francisco, which also put public money into campaigns, as leaders of American governance. However, people in Arizona and Maine seem reasonably pleased with their systems, and during its 14 years of publicly funded campaigns, Seattle certainly didn't suffer.
"Many of the early reviews on the Maine and Arizona systems are reported to be positive," according to a report delivered recently to the King County Council. However, taking a broad national view, "the results of the public financing efforts appear to be mixed, with some models working well and others seeming to flounder. Some of the system models ... are still too new to ... truly evaluate their effectiveness. An example of a questionable result is shown in the Portland model."
It's hard to point out a great public funding success, concedes Washington Public Campaigns' board secretary, Terry Sullivan. But, says Sullivan, who helped found the group, it's easy to point out reasons why we should try it: The amounts of money spent on political campaigns are obscene. No one doubts that money buys political influence. The need to raise — or have — a lot of money keeps some otherwise-qualified candidates from running. Public funding brings more people, and different people, onto the field. The movement's poster child is Maine Representative Deborah Simpson, a waitress and single mom who ran for the legislature with public campaign funds and now chairs Maine's House Judiciary Committee.
"You'll never be able to prove the effect on cleanness," Radosevich suggested. "What you can show is that there are more competitive elections, and perhaps more diversity in candidates."
A lack of clear success stories poses less of a problem, Sullivan suggests, than the current tendency — encouraged by the media — to measure a candidate's seriousness by his or her ability to raise funds. Real candidates raise lots of cash.
Comments:
Posted Fri, Jun 27, 12:04 p.m. inappropriate
Don't Discount the Public Good in Voter-Owned Elections: The phrase "voter-owned elections" capsulizes the public benefit. The sums being raised and spent for Seattle City Council and King County Council are outrageous. It costs a minimum of $200,000 to mount a credible campaign for Seattle City Council. King County Councilmember Jane Hague raised $465,000 in 2007, without a credible opponent. Unlike Barak Obama's campaign, this money is not coming from small donors on the Internet. It comes from monied interests who want to influence (or think they might want to influence) local government. It comes laboriously, phone call by phone call, taking hours of every candidate's daily scheduled "phone time." We are buying back candidates' time that would be better spent listening to voters, and we are buying back councilmembers' time that would be better spent listening to constituents, rather than the ready access that large donors are likely to have.
In Seattle, I would like to think that we would gain millions of dollars worth of mitigation: low-income housing, plus parks, lighting, sidewalks, upgraded sewers and other mitigation if we listened less to developers and more to ordinary people. Probably the Arctic Building would still be housing, rather than becoming a hotel. We'd have more buses and one less streetcar. We'd have better-looking town houses. I'm suggesting that the city council would be more likely to do the right thing, rather than the easy thing. These are concrete public benefits that should not be discounted.
At the state level, in 2002 the 29 lobbyists from the pharmaceutical industry cost us the public benefit of mass purchasing prescription drugs for all state employees and Medicaid recipients, estimated at 30 to 40% of their cost.
I recall the Bill Moyers video of the Arizona public campaign financing program where the everyday guy with the handlebar mustache, now a state legislator, gleefully says he can show lobbyists the door, rather than making time for them if he doesn't want to, because of public campaign financing. The freedom of a legislator to follow his or her own conscience: priceless!
Listening to lobbyists costs the public billions at every level of government. When will we put a stop to it?
Posted Fri, Jun 27, 1:03 p.m. inappropriate
Open invite for fraud: Say 'NO!!' to public financing. The left wing interests could 'bundle up' a huge lump sum from one or 2 fat cats and then break it down into 1000 small individual contributions and execute classic money laundering. fraud, and make another 'Strippergate' the model example. If $200,000 is needed; get 2000 people to each give you $100. NO PUBLIC FINANCING; especially in any 'top2' run-off type election.
Posted Sat, Jun 28, 9:34 a.m. inappropriate
Brilliant!: The best way I know of to get Crosscut readers to advocate for public financing of local elections is to first create a cogent, well-thought-out post like the first one, and then to plant a fake post from a fake conservative, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing troll, give him a cute name like "animalal," and post that alongside the first post.
Posted Mon, Jun 30, 2:07 p.m. inappropriate
Public Financing Creates Tangible Victories: Although the article quoted someone as saying, "It's hard to point out a great public funding success," that couldn't be further from the truth. Just take a look at Maine. With over 83% of the state legislature elected using Voter Owned Elections, it greatly freed them from the confines of moneyed interests. That enabled them to create the Dirigo health care program, which provides much needed coverage to many of the state's most disadvantaged people. And they also created a comprehensive prescription drug plan to help lower the rising costs of medication. There was one state legislator who said that the the feats would have been impossible had it not been for the Voter Owned Elections. Whenever a lobbyist - whether from the health care industry or otherwise - the would approach an elected official, he could simply show the lobbyist the door.
Can you imagine such reforms happening here in Washington when powerful, well-heeled interested are free to influence the political process? I highly doubt it. Just recently a bill was defeated in the Washington state legislature that would have capped the interest rate that short-term cash advance companies - like Money Tree - can legally charge. Although it would have benefited thousands upon thousands of Washingtonians, the lobbyists had it quickly killed. That is just ONE small reason why we need Voter Owned Elections. Someone is always going to pay for elections. Would you rather have it be unaccountable corporate interests or would you like to be the one that has to be answered to?
Not only is there ample proof that Voter Owned Elections work, but standing by and doing nothing while our political system is inundated with money is a crime against democracy itself.
Posted Mon, Jun 30, 3:37 p.m. inappropriate
Actually, no they can't: The donations must be gathered from individual, registered voters who must also sign their name. Then all those signatures and donations must be verified.
Posted Mon, Jun 30, 3:41 p.m. inappropriate
That was a response to the "knuckle-dragger": It might not have been clear, I was responding to the comment about getting 2 fat cats to divvy up their large contributions among individuals.
There's no way that would work.