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Clean Money 2000 |
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Public matching funds provided in return for spending and contribution limits and on-line disclosure of business connections of campaign contributors. Under a voter approved voluntary campaign finance program, candidates for the offices of Mayor, Public Advocate (city attorney), Comptroller, Borough President, and City Council member, are to be provided with public matching funds if they can demonstrate a sufficient level of private fundraising. Matching public funds are to be distributed at a rate of four dollars for every dollar raised from a New York City resident up to $250, for a maximum of $1,000 in public funds per contributor. Contributions from organizations and nonresidents are not matchable. In return, the candidates must abide by strictly enforced
contribution
and spending limits and must disclose to the newly created New
York City
Campaign Finance Board exactly where their campaign contributions
come
from and how they are spent.
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Disclosure is considered a key feature of this reform effort and
the Board has developed a computerized contribution database that allows
it to produce disclosure reports for any candidate in the Program which
can be viewed through the Board's Searchable Contribution Database, at a
public terminal or can be requested in a variety of formats through the
Board's press office. The entire database can be purchased on computer disk
for $125.To ease the burden on campaigns in complying with the Board's accounting
and reporting rules the Board developed C-SMART (Candidate Software for
Managing and Reporting Transactions), which is provided to participating
campaigns at no charge. This software allows campaigns to file their statements
on disk, and it also allows the Board to upload the campaign's finance data
onto the Board's computer system.
In addition, in an effort to significantly reduce the opportunity for campaign contributors to buy influence with candidates a Charter Revision proposal was approved by a majority of New York City voters in November 1998 whereby candidates are required to disclose information about which of their contributors do business with the City of New York. Candidates for the citywide offices of Mayor, Public Advocate, and Comptroller who are in the Program and are opposed on the ballot must also participate in a series of mandatory public debates.
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Non debate turns into Campaign Finance Reform
love fest
as Alliance speaker rocks the Casbah.
With the ACLU conceding early on that they were in basic
agreement with
the Alliance for Clean Elections the much anticipated second
Campaign Finance
Reform Debate over the constitutionality of publicly financed
elections
turned into a seminar on the whys and hows of clean money
campaign finance
reform.
On the local level, he cited the $5.4 million dollars the Chargers get every year for the next 30 years from city coffers in addition to the ticket guarantee that cost city taxpayers almost 4 million dollars just last year. Citing apathy by citizens caused in part by the complicity of the media and what he described as people's "severe chronic busyness" or "rat racing" lifestyles he went on to say that polls show that 75% of all voters want genuine campaign finance reform but don't know how to get it. Saying that he didn't want to demonize all politicians he pointed out that their number one priority was to get elected and reelected and that they spent most of their time on "dialing for dollars" and not on taking care of the public's business. Claiming that most politicians would like to get out of the present special interest campaign finance system he pointed out that "you and I" are responsible for the present mess and that "we the people" should publicly finance all elections so that the public owns the politicians not the special interests. Speaking for the ACLU, Dale Kelly Bankhead noted her general agreement with the Alliance on the need for campaign finance reform and then pointed out the importance of the current interpretation of the First Amendment to the U.S. |
She pointed out that it costs about $70,000 to send just one mailer to San Diego voters in a Congressional district and upwards of $1 million to buy a week of San Diego television spots, going on to say that it is very important to provide a floor of public campaign financing but not to try and set expenditure or contribution limits as they would likely be overturned in court. Stressing disclosure of campaign contributions as the key element, Ms Bankhead said, "Voters need to know who's trying to buy whom." She concluded her presentation by pointing out that participation by a politician in the public financing of elections must be on a purely voluntary basis, and that non-participation should not be labeled with a "scarlet letter." During the question and answer period a number of novel ideas
were offered
from the audience on how to reform the political process.
Another great idea was to have politicians wear jackets, like auto racers do, with the names of their sponsors on them so everybody would know where they were coming from. Is it any wonder why San Diegans think their City politicians are on the take? It's time the OLD DOGS downtown learned some NEW TRICKS---like how elected officials should represent everyone, not just their special interest contributors. A simple choice. Let candidates run their campaigns with special interest money, or let them take Clean Money. Then let voters decide which candidates best represent their interests. Cut the leash between private interests and public officials.
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By Mel Shapiro Chair, Research Committee I've been asked to see if there's any connection between the taxpayer funded $243 million ballpark and campaign contributions to those politicos who make the decisions. Here's what I've found so far. PADRES OWNERS-MOORES & LUCCHINO donated as follows: Mayor Susan Golding: $3,000 for her Senate campaign.
STREET PROPERTIES
Background: The East Village Redevelopment will be done
in two
phases. Property owners in Phase 1 get the value of their
property before
the ballpark deal went through, not the current market value. The
City
buys the property, by condemnation, if necessary.
The owners, the Street family made contributions as follows:
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Mayor Golding: $4,000 Council member George Stevens: $100 Council member Byron Wear: $250 Council member Juan Vargas: $2,000 Council member Barbara Warden: $250 OLIVER McMILLAN COMPANIES
Background: Slated for residential and retail development. Originally a problem as to parking, since Oliver did not want to supply it. The City solved this problem by deciding that Centre City Development, an arm of the City, would build a 500 car parking garage. Oliver McMillan's contributions are as follows: Mayor Golding; $9,000
ACE PARKING
Background: Obviously, the ballpark will be a bonanza for parking lot operators, since the 42,000 seat stadium will only have 5,000 parking spaces. In addition, the new parking garage serving the Oliver McMillin property will be managed by Ace Parking. Ace contributions are as follows: Mayor Susan Golding: $1,000
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Calling the curent system of raising money to run for public office "badly tarnished," and "irretrievably broken" they called for comprehensive campaign finance reform under which candidates |
could voluntarily opt out of the private money chase and run with
public financing.
"Our constituents 'get it'. The polling data is clear and consistent. People want major changes," the letter went on to say. The letter also supported passage of the Shays-Meehan bill that would ban soft money but pointed out that "achieving full-fledged reform will require passage of the "Clean Money, Clean Elections" bill. |