Keeping Local Campaigns Clean
COMMENTING on money in politics in our recent Third state Senate Third District race, the IJ wrote: "It would be a shame if the race was decided by money."
Fact: 95 percent of state-level political races are won by the person who raises and spends the most money. And that's generally true locally.
Fact: Fewer than one-half of one percent of Americans have ever contributed more than $200 to a political campaign.
That means the electoral process disenfranchises most people because when they vote, they mostly have to choose from candidates backed by large donors.
Last fall in San Rafael, only 40 percent of eligible voters voted. That means that 60 percent said, "Screw it. My vote doesn't count because I can't buy into the system."
Fact: The main reason more people don't run for office is that candidates have to raise a lot of money, and not because of negative campaigning. Last fall, the top three finishers in San Rafael's city election each had to raise more than $50,000.
Fact: Even if a candidate successfully raises a lot of money, her career can be ended by independent expenditure committees (IEs).
IEs are constitutionally protected political ads independently financed outside of a candidate's campaign, exposing or extolling a given candidate.
There is an effective remedy to both the rising costs of campaigns and the paucity of candidates. And this same remedy is the best deterrent against independent expenditures: Full public funding of campaigns (PFCs).
Here's how public funding works: You sign up to run "clean" and then must collect $5 donations from about 1 percent of the voters. Then, when you're qualified to be on the ballot, you pledge not to raise or spend any private funds. You receive a predetermined amount of money from the public coffers, enough to run a viable campaign.
Here's the cool part: There's additional money set aside for "FairFight" funds. If you get hit by an IE, the fair fight funds allow you to respond quickly to fight back with a response.
Now, nothing can eliminate IEs or negative campaigning. Heck, candidates send out hit pieces on their opponents all the time.
But PFCs are a clear disincentive. In Arizona's clean election system, IEs fell by more than 60 percent since 2001, while here in California, they've grown by more than 6,000 percent in the same time.
And in Portland, Ore.'s recent primary, "fair fight" funds didn't even need to be accessed. PFCs change the culture of politics for the better. In Maine, more than 70 percent of the women candidates said they ran because the elections were publicly funded. And in Arizona, voter turnout in local races increased by a third.
Moreover, PFCs level the playing field, making rich people equal to ditch diggers. This means many more different kinds of people can run, and competition is increased.
The big private donor is taken out of play as well as special interests and lobbyists.
For these reasons, the best political system we can get is publicly funded campaigns. That's why seven states and three cities have adopted PFCs, and that's why there's a bill in our state Legislature to establish a PFC pilot program.
Because San Rafael is a charter city, its councilmembers can vote in PFCs by ordinance. A local grassroots effort is now underway, supported by the California Clean Money Campaign.
Join me in urging that San Rafael and Marin County support local publicly funded campaigns to usher in a new era of civility and democratic opportunity.
And I can solemnly promise that if we have public funding of campaigns, I'll never run an IE again.
Jonathan Frieman of San Rafael is vice president of the California Clean Money Campaign.
See the article on Marin Independent Journal website
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