Not all beds have monsters under them

Jim Redden reports in today’s Tribune on relatively insignificant administrative errors made by three candidates seeking Public Campaign Financing.

I have three quick comments:

1. Anyone who thinks it’s easy to follow all the City and state rules for campaign reporting has never done it. My reaction to the errors made by others so far this cycle has been to thank God I didn’t trip up last time or this.

2. The one-reporting-mistake-and-you’re-out rule didn’t make sense to me last time, and it isn’t any more reasonable in this instance. Candidates and elected officials are human beings. Innocent mistakes happen, as well as gross negligence, rank incompetence, and outright evil intent and actions. Smart, caring Portlanders understand the difference. There are doubtless others out there interested in defrauding the system, and donors/voters must be more careful in their choices given the despicable acts in the first cycle. But it wouldn’t make sense to disqualify a candidate for making a legal expenditure, recording it incorrectly, and amending the report immediately when informed of the error. Note that because Erik Sten and I were able to get the one-mistake-and-you’re-out rule amended for this cycle, another candidate who has filed his first 300 donations did not get penalized when 11 of them turned out to be from people not registered to vote in Portland. Even diligent people with the best intentions make mistakes.

3. This illustrates again why it’s appropriate not to hold the referendum on Public Campaign Financing in Portland until 2010. As I’m quoted saying in the Tribune, it’s a work in progress, and we should vote on the best possible set of regulations and practices. Changes in administrative rules were made during the last campaign to improve the system, doubtless more will be made as this cycle continues. That’s what intelligent people do, when working on a new project – they continually evaluate what’s working, what’s not, and make changes to improve performance and outcomes.

City code is law, which must be followed (cough) unless the Council votes not to, as in the street renaming issue (cough cough). Administrative rules are intended to be adjusted to correct or fit changing circumstances. The minor amendments made by the Auditor in this case are reasonable.

As we use and evaluate Public Campaign Financing this cycle, it will be helpful to check for monsters under every bed, while recognizing that often there are only dust bunnies.