Clean campaign idea falls short

By Promise King

The Portland Tribune, Nov 23, 2004, Updated Oct 30, 2009

It seemed like a bright idea. But the more we know about it, the less sensible it becomes.

Here’s the story.

A growing band of well-intentioned activists, led by Commissioner Erik Sten and City Auditor Gary Blackmer, believe City Hall decisions often benefit special interests more than public interests. They think they can rid Portland of moneyed politics, bring minorities into the political leadership equation and reclaim the democratic principle of one person, one vote.

They reasoned that the way to accomplish all this is through the clean campaign initiative, which would provide public funds to candidates running for public office. To have access to the funds, candidates would have to demonstrate that they had community support by collecting $5 donations from a large number of contributors. And candidates also would agree to refuse contributions from people who did business with the city.

Sounds plausible, but the “community support” qualifying threshold may be cause for more chaos. The real winners, if this reform effort sails through the City Council, will be organized bodies of special interest, such as unions. The initiative would give candidates they supported undue advantage over those with no ties to such groups. There’s nothing in this reform to stop union leaders from passing out 5 bucks on behalf of each of their members to support candidates favorable to their groups.

I don’t think this levels the playing field.

Besides, how do you mitigate the influence of the individually wealthy candidates who want to spend their own money on the campaign? The fact is, privileged candidates have constitutionally protected rights to spend as much personal money as they wish on political campaigns.

I also believe the spending limit under this plan would be a big advantage for incumbents. Challengers need a lot more money to match the name recognition enjoyed by the incumbent.

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