It’s well known that a run for a big office needs big money backing it, but up and down the ballot, budgets have been swelling, and not only in the U.S.’s largest cities. Several localities—including Portland, Denver, and Baltimore—have initiatives in motion to overhaul the system either by driving down the dollar amounts each person can give or solicit, piloting public financing projects that make each donated dollar go further, or both. The overarching goal is to keep big money and its influence out of local politics, and to give all candidates a fair shot.
In Denver, voters will decide on an expansive reform package, including a contribution cap and a generous matching fund. Baltimore’s city council has unanimously passed a charter amendment that would create a similar small-dollar matching system, if Mayor Catherine Pugh approves it and passes it along to the fall ballot. And before Portland, Oregon, phases in its own public financing measure in 2020, voters will decide on a strict local contribution cap this November.
“The reason we’re doing this in the city of Portland right now is, one, we want to show political momentum—that this is something popular that different areas want to accomplish,” said Jason Kafoury, one of the leaders of the Honest Elections campaign, which is championing Portland’s “Fair Elections/Clean Governance” ballot initiative. “But beyond that we are interested in changing the local political culture, and forcing this to be a campaign issue that people have to address.”
[For more on this story by SARAH HOLDER, go to https://www.citylab.com/equity...al-elections/567727/]
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