New Haven Independent

Posted by: Ned | August 2, 2007 8:43 AM

Why should anyone be forced to support a candidate with whom she doesn't agree? So, I'll be forced to pay for some homophobic, religious freak to run for office? - great! (and it is force - just try not paying your taxes). What's so special about 200 voters? How is a voter defined? This system sucks. Just think if this system were instituted on a national level, we could all be paying to keep our senators in diapers and whores - wonderful! How about we bring back the guillotine, to be used on politicians and the ruling class; it worked in France - they have universal health care, a humane work week vacations and high speed trains...

Posted by: Lafayette | August 2, 2007 12:59 PM

Ned,

Actually, France has a 1:1 match public financing system for national candidates - the qualification threshold is that they poll over 5%. There are spending caps and it it is not a voluntary system - everybody has to do it. Additionally, France has a very basic runoff system for presidential elections, as opposed to America's plurality system. While it is not as sophisticated as proportional representation or instant run-off voting, it is enough to ensure an effective multi-party system.

Culture and history (i.e. the "Guillotine") partially explain French social democracy. But as the U.S. experience can attest, without procedural safeguards against corporate dominance in election financing or the narrowing of policy deliberation in pursuit of the median voter, you are not going to get thinkgs like universal healthcare and work-life balance in labor law.

Which gets to my second point. As a taxpayer, you are not directly supporting a candidate through public financing. Instead you are subsidizing a process that is itself a rather valuable public good. For the small price of $200k a year you get more competition, more ideas, a little sunshine into government, and the most powerful interests have their clout somewhat diminished. I don't agree with Mr. Elser's views and I have great disdain for his party. But I am glad the new fund allows him to run and think the City will be better for it by pressing accountability in some areas and engaging citizens. I bet some of his ideas get adopted and some of those GOPers that come out of the woodwork eventually get involved in other civic affairs - like city commissions and such. That's definitely worth $1.67 a year per New Havener.

Finally, this might surprise you, but you already subsidize candidates you don't like and by a lot more than this new fund asks you to. When "homophobes" in the same party have a primary in some far flung town, you are helping to subsidize their election through your contribution to the Secretary of State. When the Democrats have a primary in New Haven, non-Dems pay for the costs of polling places and election day workers since it is financed through the general fund. Democrat taxpayers in New Haven pay for a GOP Registrar of Voters. And so on. Your logic would seem to require that a candidate that choses to run a primary be required to pay for the costs of the election (in addition to the campaign.) That's not very French and definitely not very American.

Posted by: Bill Saunders | August 2, 2007 1:16 PM

I think the number of signatures cited for Newton to get on the primary ticket is wrong in this article.

It was always my understanding that a candidate only needs to get signatories representing 1% of the electorate in the last (senatorial?) election to get on the ballot. That's 189 signatures.

So any potential alders who might want to run, the signatures required for ballot access in your ward would in almost all cases be under 10.

Posted by: bruce crowder | August 2, 2007 1:36 PM

NED, we are forced to pay for all sorts of things we may not agree with. From construction projects to foreign wars. What makes this any different?

What is unfair is that the major party candidates have access to a larger pool of money than an independent candidate would. Other than that, I think it's a fine idea.

Posted by: Ned | August 2, 2007 3:57 PM

Theoretically, citizens' are being compelled to support a potential representative's political ideology or agenda, which may be completely contrary to their own. Would you be in favor of forcing a Jewish person to support a Nazi candidate's electoral bid? What if one's labor went to support a candidate who would implement Sharia law or a theocratic state (G.W. Bush)? Does that seem materially equivalent to being taxed to support a school building program?
Do more candidates mean better governance? Might a Swiss style government, by referendum, better address the power imbalance created by unequal financial resources? How about incorporating New Haven, Hartford and Bridgeport as one CT megacity and creating a power to remake CT's political and economic landscape?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasants'_Revolt#cooliris

Posted by: LAFAYETTE | August 2, 2007 6:46 PM

The only way to prevent a contemporary American Jew from your version of "being compelled to support" an American Nazi that qualifies for the ballot would be for that Nazi candidate to not only pay for his campaign expenses, but also for some portion of the actual election's costs. When a conservative Southern politician runs for office, black taxpayers that are center-left don't get a refund on the taxes they paid for election administration. Neither do recent immigrants when a politician that wants to repeal the 14th amendment runs. Where's my refund for GWB's election expenses? Nowhere. And I don't want it.

Democratic process rarely happens by itself. Modern population sizes require the expenditure of some cash to have some semblance of a democratic process. In the US, people accept that they have to pay for the mechanics of the election to get the public good, but not necessarily the campaigning. Outside of very small races, this allows that vacuum to be filled by those that have the most money to influence policy towards their self-interest. Do you know of any place that has adopted public financing of campaigns and then gone back? No, because the difference (and benefits) become steadily apparent.

Your invocation of the Swiss perhaps hints at the fact that you actually DON'T want participation or political equality. Along with the US, it is one of the few wealthy democracies that has anemic voter turnout - in large part becuase of the sheer number of elections that they have. Your original comment indicated a desire for universal healthcare & work-life balance. Referendum-style direct democracy is no guarantee that average people will participate or even have their economic interests represented - just ask anybody from California. Unless, you live in a very small town, the economics of democracy by referendum tilt agenda control even more heavily to those with the cash and motivation to spend it.