Slog

News & Arts

Line Out

Music & the City
at Night

« Dear Nerds: Don't Do Blackface | Q&A with Ezra Dickinson, a Choreogr… »

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Politics Calling All Political Nerds Interested in Public Campaign Financing

Posted by Cienna Madrid on Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 2:20 PM

Last Friday, the Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission released its proposal for how to publicly finance Seattle campaigns for office (I wrote about why this is important last month).

You can read an outline of their proposal here.

The SEEC suggests the city match public funds to private donations 4:1. "Once a candidate qualifies for the program, the City will match up to $50 of each contribution with $200, with up to $60,000 available to candidates in the primary election and up to $65,000 available to candidates in the general election," explains SEEC executive director Wayne Barnett in a memo released on Monday.

The matching funds would only kick in after city council candidates raised $15,000 in increments of $10 to $25 from Seattle residents.

Today at 4 p.m., the SEEC is holding a public meeting in the Seattle Municipal Tower (700 Fifth Avenue, rm 4080) to discuss the proposal and address the lingering questions that must still be addressed before it can be foisted on voters. The meeting should be fascinating and you should go.

FacebookShare

Comments (2) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment

I've changed my mind on this after seeing how it's worked in other cities. My original feeling is that we shouldn't encourage more ads by publicly financing them. But I think having a low cap ($10-$25 is perfect) and multiplying with public funds amplifies the voices of engaged citizens. And I'd rather hear their voices than those of large donors.

Posted by Matt the Engineer on March 6, 2013 at 2:36 PM

It seems the Council wants the taxpayers to bail them out of problem of their own making. They could easily lower the donation limit. This would remove the shadow of "Big money" and force them to cast their nets wider to a more diverse and less prosperous donor pool. They do not and wil not. Easy money making calls to the donor list is just way too tempting apparently. Even if we had public financing, self financed canidates like Mallahan (who nearly bought the Mayor's office) would continue to be a problem.

Why not lower the money obstacles to running from the start? Districts is the answer they are looking for and refues to think about.

Posted by Zander on March 6, 2013 at 7:49 PM