Thomas MacMillan Photo
Alderman Goldson.
A move to let local lawmakers in on the city’s public campaign financing system gained momentum Monday night in City Hall, but not enough to put it in place in time for elections this fall.
At a joint meeting of the Board of Aldermen’s Legislation and Aldermanic Affairs Committees, aldermen voted unanimously to form a working group to hash out a plan for extending the city’s Democracy Fund to ward-level races. Currently the public financing program applies only to mayoral races. It disperses public dollars to candidates who reach a certain level of popular financial support with the aim of enabling more people to run for office, even if they don’t have wealthy or powerful backing.
Under a plan put forward by West Rock Aldermen Darnell Goldson, candidates for the city’s 30 aldermanic seats would benefit from a plan similar to the mayoral system. While the details remain to be worked out, Goldson suggested that candidates would have to raise 20 to 25 donations of $5 or $10 each to qualify for a grant of between $500 and $1,000. Goldson said that would encourage more people to run and increase popular participation in the democratic process.
At Monday’s meeting, while a number of people spoke in favor of the measure, Beaver Hills Aldermen Carl Goldfield pointed out that the system could get very complicated with the possibility of dozens of candidates involved. He urged his colleagues to plan carefully and thoroughly. Goldfield, along with Hill Alderman Jorge Perez, was one of the prime movers behind the establishment of the Democracy Fund.
Kleppner.
Planning will take too long to have the fund expansion in place by November’s elections, said Caleb Kleppner, chair of the Democracy Fund board.
Since its creation by aldermen and Mayor John DeStefano, the Democracy Fund has played a role in only two mayoral races, in 2007 and 2009. The mayor was the only candidate to qualify for funding both those years. This year he decided to forgo public dollars in his bid for a record 10th term. He said that the process has been more trouble than it’s worth. Read more here and here.
While he has been its only participant, the mayor has also run afoul of the Democracy Fund. It fined him $500 for late filings and also criticized him for “flying in the face of” the spirit of the clean elections law by moving cash into a political action committee (PAC) to support aldermanic candidates.
That cash-funneling inspired Goldson to draft his legislation, he told his colleagues Monday. When he was elected in 2009, it was over a candidate who received funds from the mayor’s PAC. “I was challenged by a candidate that was funded almost completely by outside resources,” Goldson said.
Money from the mayor and from unions plays an outsized role in aldermanic races, Goldson said. Letting aldermanic candidates in on public financing would level the playing field and decrease corruption, he said.
The fund for aldermanic races would work as simply as possible, Goldson said. Candidates would qualify by collecting a number of small contributions, recieve a flat sum from the fund, and agree to give something up in return, like taking other money from private sources. The system might or might not include additional outlays to candidates who are outspent by non-participating candidates.
A first look into the legality of the plan under state law has found no problems, Goldson said.
“I think it’s doable,” Kleppner, the Democracy Fund chair, told the joint committee. “A modest level of funding would help community based candidates get elected. I think that’s good for the city.”
The fund, which has about $350,000, is administrated by an all-volunteer board and one contract employee, Kleppner said. The additional paperwork created by aldermanic participation would be “well within what we’re currently doing,” Keppner said. He told the committee that the fund would be willing to work with aldermen on the details of the proposal.
Alderman Goldfield, who was next to testify, raised a number of concerns, including that the administrative burden could be more than foreseen. He raised the specter of the Bridgeport ballot blunders in last year’s election. “You don’t want to be understaffed,” he said. If the system breaks down, it “really loses credibility.”
“The system has not really been tested,” he said.
Committee members voted unanimously to create a working group to hammer out the details of the plan. Perez, chair of the committee, declined a request from Goldson that he create a time frame for group’s work, but said that he would make sure it’s done expeditiously.
After the vote, Goldson noted with disappointment that his proposal will not come to fruition in time for this fall’s aldermanic races. With the mayor running unopposed, Goldson predicted DeStefano will funnel money in to ward races, as his team did in the last election (to Goldson’s detriment), and the public financing system will not be in place to counteract that. Read about that here and here.
“What are you gonna do?” Goldson said ruefully.
It remains to be seen how much support the Democracy Fund expansion will find among aldermen, many of whom could end up facing challenges from new candidates funded by a program they would have helped to create.
What about Term Limits.We the people want Term Limits.