Don’t stop believin’

Here’s an idea for the upcoming local election where two City Council seats will be up for re-election.   The City of Pleasanton is batting around the idea to follow the suit of other East Bay cities and place a cap on the amount of campaign contributions received by its candidates.   From the Contra Costa Times:

…Pleasanton officials and residents are wondering what happened to the days of homemade signs and fliers, when it wasn’t so much about how much cash you raised, but how you planned to make Pleasanton a better place.

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[City Councilmember Matt] Sullivan said it was the big-money stakes of last year’s election that particularly shocked him and prompted him to suggest that the council explore significant campaign finance reforms.

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Several other East Bay cities — Walnut Creek, Livermore, Richmond, Concord and San Ramon among them — have adopted various measures to keep local political campaigns from getting financially out of hand.

“Last year’s (election) was definitely over the top,” Sullivan said. “We saw money that we had never seen before … Large corporations were donating money.”

In the hotly contested mayoral election, then-Councilman Steve Brozosky, who challenged incumbent Mayor Jennifer Hosterman, raised $81,586, spending $75,701. Hosterman spent all of the $31,348 she raised.

Brozosky’s campaign chest was well over the entire $68,310 raised in the 2004 mayoral election among three candidates.

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Also of great interest to the council and public alike was establishing a Web site for reporting contributions, making it easier for the public to learn about who is funding a candidate.

“What we really want is a lot of disclosure,” said Mary Roberts. “Let’s put the disclosure statements on the Web and make them interactive.”

While making the fundraising process more transparent is a step in the right direction, many caution against placing limits on candidates, while leaving political action committees and independent expenditures unchecked.

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Sullivan noted that placing limits on campaign contributions would limit how much a political action committee could directly donate to a candidate.

In the Tri-Valley, Dublin limits contributions to $300, and Livermore limits contributions to $250.

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Concord takes its contribution limits a step further by restricting donations from political action committees to $1,500. The city also limits in-kind donations by a person to $2,000 and political action committees to $5,000. The total of all in-kind donations cannot exceed $6,000.

In Richmond, contributions to candidates and independent expenditure committees are limited to $2,500…

But of course, as stated in the article, a campaign contribution cap means nothing if it is not paired with a cap on the amount of expenditures that can be made for a candidate by a political action committee.   It appears that Concord has some pretty reasonable limits, $6,000 total of in-kind (aka independent expenditures) for one candidate sounds prety good.

This would allow the perceived effects of “soft money” on our own Alameda elections to pretty much dissipate and with Alameda Point in the planning process and moving toward requiring approvals from our governing bodies, even the appearance of impropriety can get folks fixated for years and years.   So, here’s what I would do, place a cap on each candidate to expend no more than $20,000 out of their own election committee.   If my memory is correct…too lazy to go back and check now…that was the general amount that the majority of folks spent.   Then, institute a Concord-like rule that a total of in-kind donations for a candidate cannot exceed $6,000.  Now this should be total independent expenditures per candidate, not a per PAC per candidate.    That way, this gives non-”establishment” candidates like your Mike Richs and Ash Jones and yes, even your Kenneth Kahns a fighting chance in the money department.  

Additionally, there is discussion in the article about limiting how much an individual or PAC can directly contribute money to a candidate.  I would say limit these to $500-1000 per PAC and $250 – 500 per individual and of course this would be total direct contribution per PAC and per individual, not per contribution.

And lastly, find a way to get all this information on-line and exposed so that folks can know who or what group is funding which candidate.  This way, you can eliminate candidates reaping a disporportionate amount of benefit from “soft money,” or candidates blowing the roof off campaign expenditures by directly expending three to four times the amount that other candidates are directly spending from their coffers.