Support Public Campaign Financing in Chapel Hill:
As most of you know, Chapel Hill is the first municipality in N.C. to be authorized to create a voter-owned elections program for local races and it’s pretty exciting. It could well end up dramatically increasing the access progressives have to holding local offices in N.C. – but we really need some support for the pilot program tomorrow night at a public hearing on it so that elected officials understand people want this initiative to succeed.
The hearing will be held on Wednesday, May 14th at the Chapel Hill Town Hall, located at 405 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. The pilot program is first on the agenda and the meeting starts at 7:00 PM sharp, so it’s probably best to get there a few minutes early. We expect the voter-owned elections portion to take about half an hour.
For those of you who haven’t heard about the program, it allows candidates running for town council and mayor to receive publicly-funded campaign financing grants if they collect a threshold of small dollar contributions and agree to spending and fund raising limits. If successful, the program could spread, bringing the benefits of voter-owned elections to more communities in NC. For example, because local elections are particularly vulnerable to disproportionate spending -- making it easy for special interest groups to buy influence locally -- voter-owned election programs can be a great way for municipalities to limit the influence of big money on local policy (those of you who witnessed the recent $200,000 anti-transfer tax ad campaign paid for by “Citizens for a Better Orange County” know what I’m talking about). Similar programs in Portland, OR and Albuquerque, NM have resulted in increased voter participation, more diverse candidates and a drop in special interest donations, even for non-participating candidates.
NC Voters for Clean Elections has been working with the town of Chapel Hill for years to make this reform possible. If you are a resident of Chapel Hill, it would be great if you came to the public hearing and showed your support of the initiative.
Thanks if you can help!
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Here's to Chapel Hill~
Best of luck to Chapel Hill residents for a strong turnout and support of the voter-owned elections program.
I often wish I lived in Chapel Hill. But Raleigh needs every liberal it can hang onto.
Please let us know how it goes tonight.
Bru'
I will not support State-Sponsored Party Protection Financing...
AKA, Incumbent Protection Financing
As a Resident, I Have Some Problems
I'm not sure that we have a problem that public financing will really solve. I fully understand the goals and applaud those who wish to make our system fairer, but my concerns remain.
1. We are talking about an 11% Town tax increase. Can we afford $50K or more each election or should we address some higher funding priorities like our rising crime rate. I would rather see another police officer or fire fighter.
2. In the last 15 years, how many incumbents have been defeated? How much did the challengers have to spend to do so? This funding idea really protects the incumbents.
3. Yes, "outsiders" spent obscene amounts to defeat the transfer tax. The proposed Chapel Hill ordinance does nothing to control independent outside spending. Could they even do it if they wanted to? So-called "independent" spending for or against any candidate can and will make a difference if this financing plan is approved.
4. Our problem does not seem to be money as the barrier to running for office. Rather, our problem is that those who may be interested say they just can't afford to make the time commitment given their work, family, and other obligations. The time demands have grown significantly and I would be interested in hearing what James thinks about the time demands today versus when he served. A current Council member makes the point; read Laurin Easthom's blog post on something having to give.
Given these concerns, I can't support our Town approving this at the present time. I just am not interested in subsidizing campaigns that will protect incumbents, divert our needed dollars from true needs, and not address the real issues in our local electoral process. We are not Portland, OR or Albuquerque, NM, and we just don't have their problems.
Where's the research?
Are there any studies (of academic caliber) that bear this out?
It's my understanding that the U.K. has publicly-funded elections for Parliament, and their incumbent retention rate doesn't hold a candle to our Congress's.
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relocating from Indianapolis, IN to RTP, NC soon; got any advice for me?
I wouldn't recommend drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me. -- Hunter S. Thompson
Incumbents
In our last election, we had the very rare occurrence here of having one incumbent defeated by a newcomer who was self funded and spent lots of money. The four Council incumbents and mayor ran as a slate and sent out mailers encouraging voters to support the slate. Incumbents like these had the clear advantage because it takes lots of money to overcome them. They also have reclaimed signs and material from prior elections, sit at each meeting on TV and benefit from name/face recognition, and appear in the media as they perform their duties.
This is not new, it's always been tough to beat incumbents at all levels. There may be studies, but on our local level, the experience has been pure incumbent advantage.
I wonder if public funding would work better in places like this
where the only local media is the newspaper. I'd love to see it come up here. We might be able to get Democrats or Unaffiliateds to run if we had public financing in Moore County (which is probably why the Republican county commission won't let it happen.)
Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi
Pointing at Naked Emperors
Great point.
That's a great point. If the incumbents (in a region, at a certain level of elective office, etc.) are passionately opposed to public financing, it's likely because they think they won't be advantaged by it.
I won't say fhblack is wrong about public financing being good for incumbents in Chapel Hill, because I don't know enough about the city to gainsay him.
But the few data points we've collected suggest to me that the public-financing/incumbency-advantage correlation is a weak one.
For example, in the literature I've read, the dominant factor promoting incumbency in the U.S. House of Representatives is district gerrymandering. I would not be surprised if the effect of publicly-financed races for the House were non-discernible, swamped by the power of district boundary calculus.
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relocating from Indianapolis, IN to RTP, NC soon; got any advice for me?
I wouldn't recommend drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity for everyone, but they've always worked for me. -- Hunter S. Thompson