Local Campaign Finance reform

There is an awful lot of money being spent on local elections. Most of that money is going to yard signs and other marketing that is high on name recognition and short on content. It doesn’t need to be like this and there is a lot that we can do to change it. Quality communities create learning environments in which citizens are very well informed voters.


One of the ways that we can do that is to make important information readily and easily accessible to citizens. Not long ago, I went before the City Council of College Station to request that they simply include on a future agenda for discussion the idea that campaign finance reports be published to the city’s web site. The Council took up this issue while away at a workshop and unanimously declined to put it on a future agenda.

There is a degree to which this action is understandable. All city council members must be elected which means they must raise money. Asking them to make this information so easily and readily available is a little like asking them to stand around in their underwear. Nonetheless, what is the message that they have sent by refusing even to put the issue up for discussion? The message is that they have something to hide and that they do not feel that it is important for citizens to have this sort of information. The reason given for not considering this proposal was because citizens can go down to city hall, fill out a freedom of information request, wait for it to be reviewed by the city’s legal staff and, if approved, they can come back to city hall pay for printing and pick up the request. When it is so easy to get this information why go to the expense of uploading to the cities web page? First of all it cost almost nothing to make this information readily available, in fact it may save the city money by reducing the number of work hours that go into filling the individual requests for information. But the most important reason to post this information is because it lets citizens know that their city is open and wants informed and engaged citizens. Having this information easily available can go a long way toward creating a higher level of interest in the electoral process of our local government and its elected officials.

But really, posting campaign finance reports to the city’s web site is just a baby step in the right direction. A much larger step would be to embrace actual campaign reform. Many cities, such as Austin have successfully instituted progressive campaign reforms that result in elections consuming less money and doing a much better job of informing citizens. In this sort of reform the city provides candidates who meet minimum requirements city resources to promote themselves. These resources might include city run candidate forms repeated on city TV, web space and other means of informing citizens on the candidates views. Citizens are drawn to the information intense resources. In turn the candidates agree to spending limits and other restrictions that help keep the campaign focused on important issues. Candidates may chose to opt out of these systems, spending what they wish on the campaign, but such refusals to participate in a good citizen friendly system would alienate the citizens who come to depend on the system to provide easy and rich election information.