“Support Voter Owned Elections!” – ?

If you do, hold on to your $5 for now.

The only candidate who’s filed so far seeking Public Campaign Financing for a run a Commissioner’s seat on Portland City Council appears to have used the list of people who donated to my campaign, to send a letter asking for $5 contributions for his. I received one myself. Several of my supporters have contacted me, asking if I support Charles Lewis. The answer is no.

I found the mailing from Mr. Lewis troubling. The glossy, full-color brochure is headed “SUPPORT VOTER OWNED ELECTIONS!” in large block capital type at the top. Only at the bottom, below the smiling photograph, is “CHARLES LEWIS” in the same sized font, and “for Portland City Commissioner” in smaller script underneath. The layout of the flyer is why many of my donors are contacting me, I think. They want to know if this candidacy supports the cause of Public Campaign Financing. I’m not convinced it does, based on the evidence in the letter and the current status of uncertainty over whether or not there will be an open seat on the City Council.

Above all, in my campaign, I strived to be honest. I understand someone wanting to have as much time as possible to qualify for public financing. But here’s what the form says, that people are being asked to sign along with giving the candidate their $5 donation:

How can most citizens receiving the mailing be able to affirm that statement, when they don’t know which seat Mr. Lewis is running for, they don’t know if he will be challenging an incumbent, and they don’t know who else may be a candidate?

The new form doesn’t require the candidate to state which seat s/he is seeking, and neither Mr. Lewis’s glowing tri-fold pamphlet nor his letter says. While the filing period doesn’t open until next week, it’s odd the candidate is no longer required to indicate on the donation form whether s/he intends to file for Seat 1 (currently held by Sam Adams) or Seat 4 (occupied by Randy Leonard). Surely it makes a difference to donors, which one is being challenged? My mother wouldn’t care which I ran against, but most Portlanders certainly should.

Someone did a very professional job with the expensive overweight mailing, complete with letterhead, inscribed envelopes, and full color brochure…. it made me laugh, remembering my piece of cardboard that cost 40 cents, written on with markers, that I carried around to houseparties throughout my campaign. My volunteers hand-wrote the return address on letters sent out after I qualified. We worked hard to be thrifty with both public money and the $5 donations of 1045 Portlanders.

Mailing to my contributors seems to indicate insufficient contacts on Mr. Lewis’s list of his own known supporters. The envelope was addressed to me “or current resident”, even. I’m posting this on my blog in part because some of my donors will wonder if I aided Mr. Lewis by giving him my database and encouraged him to solicit from them. I want them to know I didn’t.

But what really concerns me is the letter’s instructions that donors should sign as both donor and collector of the $5 donation on the enclosed triplicate City form. The candidate says, “For mailed requests, you are your own “solicitor”. Write in your own name and address in this portion and don’t forget to sign.”

Now, last time, my donations sent by mail asked exactly the same thing. But the form was different – and that caused/allowed problems, as we saw in the fraud case. Recent program revisions were designed to address those problems, and the new form makes no sense if the contributor and the solicitor are the same person. The solicitor section now starts, “I hereby certify that I received a $5.00 qualifying contribution with the knowledge and consent of the candidate named above, that I gave nothing of value in return for the contribution….”. The donor didn’t receive the $5.00 contribution, they gave it, and the campaign received it. I’m disappointed the Lewis campaign isn’t recognizing that the fiasco and fraud in the initial cycle calls for greater effort to ensure candidates keep everything as well done as possible. Someone from the campaign should sign the lower portion of the form.

If I run, I will not be asking people to mail in their form having signed as both donor and solicitor. A real collector authorized by the candidate and connected with the campaign should sign as having received the donation, in my opinion. While I hope Mr. Lewis has asked for and received the go-ahead from the Auditor’s office to accept double-signed forms, as was allowed last time, I don’t believe that’s in keeping with the spirit of the revised form or rules. Especially with his mailing arriving at the same time the prison sentence was handed down on Golovan this week, I’m concerned that this candidate’s campaign, with brochures and envelopes championing his being “Voter Owned”, isn’t going the extra mile to follow the intent as well as the letter of the new revisions.

To me, Public Campaign Financing isn’t just a better way of providing funds for political campaigns. It should be one element in opening up our society’s power structure, and in raising the standards of ethical behavior in elected officials and all other participants in civic activities. Candidates using the program this cycle carry perhaps even more responsibility than I did last time, to restore and build hope and trust in the program. I’ve hesitated to publish this post, in reluctance to draw attention to something some would consider either a minor error, or not a problem at all. But I care about the future of Public Campaign Financing too much to keep my concerns to myself. Candidates using it must hold themselves and their campaign workers/volunteers to the highest standards… and registered Portland voters should assess the level of the bar the candidate sets for that, when deciding whether or not to help the person qualify by donating $5.

Let me be very clear, to my supporters especially:

1. I support Sam Adams for re-election to Seat 1, if he chooses to run for it again.

2. I haven’t decided whether I will run if the Commissioner # 1 seat becomes open. I may. If I do, of course I will participate in the Public Campaign Financing program – and, dear supporters, I will need even more help than last time, to reach the desired outcome.

3. While I believe all candidates should run using Public Campaign Financing, I don’t support Charles Lewis for election to the Portland City Council and will not be sending him $5.

4. Supporters of Public Campaign Financing should endorse the candidate they donate to – that’s the purpose of collecting qualifying donations, to indicate community support. We don’t want just any and all candidates seeking public funds to qualify. We want the money to go only to people who have the right experience, interests, and community perspective to represent Portland’s citizens if elected. In the first run, some people helped me qualify more to support Public Campaign Financing than because they were particularly Amanda Fritz fans. And together, we certainly achieved an important success and contribution to the concept. Moving forward, the individual candidate more than the principles of the program must be the more crucial factor affecting a registered voter’s decision on whether to give or not to give $5.

5. Citizens should learn from the first cycle, and be very certain the person you donate to is one who will use public money honorably, frugally, and wisely. Find out more about candidates before deciding to donate to one or more – don’t rely on a slick PR flyer. Significant amounts of public money are allocated to candidates who qualify. Your personal $5 contribution may not seem like a large sum, but with it you are 1/1000th responsible for dedicating $145,000 in tax money (1/1500th and $195,000 for Mayoral races) to someone who may use it carefully or abuse it. That is a huge responsibility for the $5 donor. Make each choice diligently.

6. There will be time enough to choose a candidate to give $5 to, once the Mayor and Sam Adams have announced their intentions. You might give to one, more than one, or none. Until we know the players and whether or not there will be open seats, it’s too soon to commit to one candidate. Unless you happen to be a true Charles Lewis supporter, of course.

Perhaps his mailing was sent out to my donors this particular week, before Mayor Potter’s announcement about his plans for 2008, in the hope some recipients might not think that through? Happily, the number of people contacting me to ask for more information indicates I can continue to be proud of the hearts and minds of my supporters.