Voters Could Decide on Election Funding
Mayor wants measure on ballot in November
Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates wants to take a ballot measure to voters that would apparently make the East Bay city the nation's first to finance local campaigns entirely with public funds.
Details have not been worked out specifying which city officials would be covered or how the city would pay for such a system, but Bates and other advocates want the City Council on Tuesday to direct city staff to begin work on a measure that could be put to voters as early as November.
"We want get moving so we're ready to go to the voters in November,'' said Bates, who suggested that raising parking fines again might be one potential source of funds. "The reality is it's just an idea percolating now. We've got a long way to go.''
The idea is supported by Common Cause and UCLA's Center for Governmental Studies, which advocate full public financing for all elected officials in Berkeley.
A report sent to the council by city staff this week estimates the cost in grants to candidates for just the mayor's race in 2006 could range between $450,000 and $1.6 million. Throw in city auditor, council members, the rent board and school board and administration costs, and the total could rise to between $1.4 million and $3.9 million, according to the report.
Arizona and Maine have full public financing for state constitutional officers, according to Sam Ferguson, a philosophy student at UC Berkeley who is working with Common Cause. "Public financing opens the political process to more candidates, and incumbents no longer worry all the time about raising funds for the next election,'' Ferguson said.
Other cities in California and elsewhere -- including Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, Sacramento and San Francisco -- have partial public financing systems in which candidates receive matching grants, typically in exchange for agreeing to spending limits. No city has full financing, Ferguson said.
A key aspect of full financing is that if someone chose not to abide by a spending limit, the city would give those candidates who did agree matching funds up to a certain limit, Berkeley City Clerk Sherry Kelly said.
In San Francisco, by contrast, once a candidate who rejects public financing passes a spending threshold, then candidates who are getting public financing are no longer limited and can spend as much money as they can raise, Kelly said.
Receiving public financing in Berkeley would be voluntary, and to qualify a candidate most likely would have to raise a certain number of signatures and contributions, Bates said.
A divided city Fair Campaign Practices Commission endorsed the concept in October after holding five hearings on the subject.
Bates says Berkeley candidates spend too much money in mayoral races. Bates spent about $230,000 to get elected in 2002, and he and his wife loaned his campaign $90,000, only about $17,000 of which he has been able to repay.
Raising that money is particularly difficult in Berkeley because city law prohibits individual donations of more than $250 and prohibits candidates from receiving money from business entities, Bates says.
The high cost of running for mayor means that candidates either must spend their own money or spend an inordinate amount of time raising money, and donations usually come with strings attached, Bates said.
The average spent by "serious candidates'' for mayor in the last three elections ranged between $182,198 and $201,049, according to city figures. The amount spent on council seats ranged between $13,000 and $20,000, but one candidate in 2002 spent $73,000.
City Councilwoman Dona Spring says she strongly supports public financing but agrees a city program should probably focus first on mayoral races.
"If the public doesn't subsidize (elections), there's going be some other entity that will,'' Spring said. "The corrosive effect at the state and national level is clear. Common people's interests are not being served.''
E-mail Patrick Hoge at phoge@sfchronicle.com.
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