Is there a need for publicly funded elections in Las Cruces? Can the city afford it? Those were among the questions raised during discussions NMPolitics.net facilitated online about the proposal.
Pictures of Money / Creative Commons
The Las Cruces City Council hasn’t yet scheduled a vote on whether to implement a system for public financing of elections but will discuss the proposal Monday. (photo cc info)
The Las Cruces City Council will discuss the idea for the first time Monday. NMPolitics.net posted the proposed legislation from Common Cause New Mexico last week along with a powerpoint presentation the group plans to show councilors.
Three councilors spoke positively about public financing last week, as did the mayor, though not all promised to vote for a proposal that hasn’t been deliberated publicly and could change.
Common Cause proposes creating a fund to cover public financing’s estimated cost of $667,000 per four-year election cycle in Las Cruces. Some objected to that.
“If this means another tax increase for citizens, then I will vote no,” Deborah Baca of Las Cruces stated in a comment posted on NMPolitics.net’s website. “All candidates should come up with their own money to run for an office.”
The City of Las Cruces raised its gross-receipt tax last year. Doña Ana County commissioners raised it county-wide again earlier this year. City councilors can implement a public-financing system without approval of voters.
Jacquie Bouvier of Las Cruces also expressed concern about the cost in a discussion on NMPolitics.net’s Facebook page.
“There’s no funding for such a thing,” she wrote. “And some taxpayers wouldn’t want their money being used for it.”
Under the proposal, the city would place $2 per resident into a public-financing fund each year. Candidate participation would be voluntary. Those who sign up and qualify for public financing would face limits on contribution sizes — $200 for mayoral candidates and $100 for council candidates. In exchange they would receive $4 in public funds for every $1 they raise through donations.
A mayoral candidate would need to collect 100 donations of between $5 and $100 from registered voters in the city — and at least $5,000 total — to qualify. Council candidates would need to collect 25 donations from registered voters in their district — and at least $1,000 total — to qualify.
Expenditures would also be capped.
Debate about the need
Some question the need for a public-financing system.
“What a joke,” wrote David Roewe of Las Cruces, a former city council candidate and former treasurer of a political action committee. “There is no big money in city elections. It is harder than hell to raise money. The city has a hidden agenda to suggest this.”
Paul Rydecki of Las Cruces asked which city officials “have been elected unfairly due to ‘big money?'”
“If there is a problem with the way elections are currently being run, please point us to the specific examples of those officials who have bought their seats and squashed the voices of the people,” he wrote.
The proposal to implement public financing isn’t about “people in Las Cruces being elected unfairly,” wrote Sarah Silvafierro of Las Cruces, the director of the community organizing group N.M. Communidades en Acción y de Fé. “I believe it’s about those who don’t even get the chance to run (whatever your ideology) for financial reasons.”
Silvafierro said finance reports indicate that many city candidates are “corporate-sponsored or are funded by the same 30 people.” Public financing, she wrote, “broadens the field of candidates and can turn anyone’s $10 into a $50 donation (according to this proposal). The more people we have participating (running and donating) in our democratic process, the better it is.”
Las Cruces doesn’t currently post campaign finance reports online. They’re available from the city clerk’s office for a fee. While discussing whether there is a need for public financing, Robert Mullan of Las Cruces said such reports should be online.
“It should be required on the city website, full disclosure and all,” he said.
‘I support having the discussion’
Mike Johnson said he believes public financing of elections hasn’t helped in Santa Fe, where he lives. That’s one of two cities in the state with such a system in place.
“My observations from the Santa Fe experiment is that the same usual-suspect power brokers and special interests still are in charge,” Johnson wrote.
He asked whether Las Cruces would pay for the system through a tax increase or budget cuts. Johnson also questioned whether public financing would effectively guarantee no special-interest money would influence campaigns.
Las Cruces City Councilor Gregory Z. Smith called those “very much questions we need to ask ourselves.”
“I support having the discussion,” Smith wrote. “How I vote will depend on what actually comes before us and how we answer those questions.”