Election Reform
Public Funding of Campaigns: How it Works
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The accelerating campaign inflation rate enables those who have money – the rich and big business – to exercise more power than ever in deciding who gets elected in Maryland. These same moneyed interests enjoy privileged access in Annapolis because lawmakers, in effect, owe their jobs to them.
The vast majority of Marylanders can’t afford to play this game. When it comes to campaign contributions, women are outspent by men approximately 5-1; labor by business at least 6-1; minorities by whites probably 15-1; and environmentalists by developers and polluters at least 20-1.
Suppression of money in campaigns seems to offer the straightest path to reform. But this approach turns out to be a dead end. The Supreme Court refuses to countenance mandatory campaign expenditure limits, calling them a violation of free speech.
It is futile to tinker around the edges of a campaign finance system that fails its citizens. We need to adopt a proven alternative to that system. That alternative is public funding of campaigns.
Here's how it works:
- To participate in the public funding of campaigns system, a candidate must demonstrate broad community support by collecting a large number of small contributions in the district she wishes to represent within a specified amount of time.
- If successful, she receives enough public funds to wage a competitive primary and, if she wins, general election campaign.
- If a privately financed opponent outspends her, she receives offsetting funds up to a certain point.
The advantages are manifold:
- It enables citizens with community support but ordinary financial means to run for office.
- It frees candidates and lawmakers from incessant fundraising, removing the appearance and reality of corruption.
- Participation in the public funding of campaigns system is voluntary; by leaving the private campaign finance system alone, it is immune to judicial challenge.
- It makes the support of one’s fellow citizens – not the ability to raise buckets of special interest money -- the single most important asset in politics.
- Publicly funded candidates who win owe nothing to fat cat contributors, reducing the latter’s privileged access in Annapolis.
- Maryland’s public funding of campaigns system will cost less than $2 per resident per year – a small price to pay for real democracy and significantly less than the current system, with its inherent tendency toward wasting taxpayer dollars on tax loopholes and pork projects for special interest contributors.
- Public funding of campaigns has already been implemented in Maine and Arizona, where it is accomplishing all the benefits outlined above. Connecticut just enacted the reform in 2005, so it has not been used there yet in an election.
Click here to tell your lawmakers to bring public funding of campaigns to Maryland!
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Further info about our bill:
In 2006, Progressive Maryland and allies persuaded the House of Delegates to pass our bill, which is based on the recommendation of the official state Study Commission on Public Funding of Campaigns in Maryland. In 2007, we fell only one vote short of passing it through the Senate. This bill, if enacted, would reduce the undue influence of special interest campaign contributors in the Maryland General Assembly by creating a voluntary, publicly funded way to run for legislative office.
- Sponsors. Sponsored by Sen. Paul Pinsky and Del. Jon Cardin.
- Endorsements. Endorsed by Progressive Maryland, Common Cause, League of Women Voters, Sierra Club, NAACP, United Methodist Church, AFL-CIO, AARP, NOW, and many other groups. Also endorsed by the Baltimore Sun and Washington Post.
- Based on Proven, Successful Models. Result of a blue-ribbon, official state study commission, which based its recommendation on successful reforms already implemented in Maine and Arizona.
- Cost. Only about $7.5 million per year, funded not by tax-dollars but instead by revenue from unclaimed property that reverts to the state.
Details:
- Seed Money. A citizen contemplating a run for Senate as a publicly funded candidate can spend up to $3,500 of privately raised “seed money” to test the political waters; a potential House candidate $2,500.
- Qualifying Contributions. If he decides to run for Senate or House in a three-member district as a publicly funded candidate, he qualifies by collecting “qualifying contributions” of $5 or more from 282 registered voters in that district (i.e., ¼ of 1 percent of the district’s population). For House candidates running in a two-member district, he collects188 contributions; 94 in a one-member district.
- Disbursement Amounts. If able to collect these qualifying contributions, a Senate candidate then receives $50,000 from the state for a contested primary or $10,000 for an uncontested primary; $50,000 for a contested general election or $6,000 for an uncontested general election. A House candidate receives $40,000 for a contested primary in a three-member district ($35,000/$20,000 for smaller districts) or $10,000 for an uncontested primary ($8,000/$6,000 for smaller districts); $40,000 for a contested general election; $6,000 for an uncontested general election ($5,000/4,000 for smaller districts). Alternatively, if the candidate is running in a district where the real competition is in the primary, he may opt to receive up to 70% of his public funding disbursement in the primary; or if the real competition is in the general election, he may opt to receive up to 70% of the total disbursement in the general election.
- Role of Political Parties. In return for the public money, the participating candidate may not accept any private contributions, except for up to 2.5 % of the total public funding disbursement in monetary or in-kind contributions from a state or local party central committee. The bill does nothing to interfere with normal party-building activities that are not candidate-specific.
- Matching Funds. If a privately financed opponent outspends the publicly funded candidate, the latter receives matching grants to keep pace, up to double the initial disbursement. So that these expenditures can be monitored, non-participating candidates must report their expenditures once they pass this threshold.
- Administration/Enforcement. The money is disbursed to participating candidates from a newly created Public Election Fund administered by a new Election Financing Commission comprised of members appointed to staggered terms by the Governor. This body has the power to levy fines.
- Flexibility. The participating candidate may spend his public funding just as a non-participating candidate spends his private funding – i.e., on yard-signs, mailings, on his own or through a slate, etc.
- Slates. A participating candidate may belong to a slate, even a slate with privately financed partners. An expenditure made by such a slate shall be considered a coordinated expenditure and subject to the expenditure limit applicable to that participating candidate, calculated on a pro rata basis by dividing the entire slate expenditure by the number of candidates on that slate.
Click here to tell your lawmakers in Annapolis to vote for the Pinsky-Cardin bill!
