City to Look at Public Funding for Mayor’s Races
Saying big campaign donors have too much influence on city
politics, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi has proposed
legislation that would create a public financing system for
mayoral elections in San Francisco.
The City would offer matching dollars if mayoral candidates
can prove they have a substantial base of support, which
means raising $25,000 from at least 250 donors in The City.
Overall, candidates could receive as much as $850,000 from
the city for raising $525,000 in private donations and
could spend a total of $1.375 million. The pot for public
funds would be capped at $2 per resident, or roughly $1.5
million a year.
“I’m trying to rescue
our local electoral system from the auction
block,†Mirkarimi said.
The move comes after a record-setting $5.7 million campaign
for mayor by Gavin Newsom in 2003, which amounted to $7.65
per city resident. A study by Ethics Commissioner Joe Lynn
found earlier this year that the recent mayoral race in San
Francisco was among the most expensive nationwide in recent
years.
Mirkarimi’s initiative has received
backing from the League of Women Voters, San Francisco
Planning and Urban Research and other policy analysis
groups.
San Francisco has had a public-financing system in place
for Board of Supervisors elections since 2002. Qualified
candidates can receive up to $44,000 for their campaigns.
“Clean electionâ€
initiatives, as they are known, have become increasingly
popular in the last decade. Six states â€"
Arizona, New Mexico, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont and
North Carolina â€" currently have them in place,
and campaigns are under way in 34 other states to enact
them, according to a group called Public Campaign. Cities
such as New York and Los Angeles also have forms of public
financing for elections.
Opponents of public financing say the measures infringe on
First Amendment rights, sap government coffers and may not
accomplish what they set out to do.
“We’ve always
recognized giving campaign donations is a kind of free
speech,†said Benjamin Barr, a constitutional
analyst for the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute.
“The First Amendment also allows you to
be silent. People shouldn’t be forced to
give money to candidates they don’t
agree with.â€
Arizona has had a “clean
election†initiative in place since 2000, but
Barr said it has failed in reaching both of its major
goals: attracting more candidates to run for office and
decreasing the influence of money in politics. He pointed
to a U.S. General Accounting Office study that found the
number of candidates running for office did not increase
between 2000 and 2002 and a Goldwater Institute study that
found little difference in the voting patterns of state
legislators who did and did not accept the public-financing
system.
San Francisco’s ordinance needs to be
approved by the Board of Supervisors and signed by the
mayor before it becomes law.
E-mail: jjouvenal@examiner.com
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