OPINION: Public financing rules in ABQ need reform

Much has happened since the Open and Ethical Elections proposal creating public financing was passed overwhelmingly by voters in 2005, but the merits of public financing were as important then as they are now.

First, public financing makes it possible for ordinary people to run for public office. You shouldn’t have to be well-connected, wealthy or a party insider to run a strong race.

Second, instead of being forced to raise money from just a handful of wealthy donors to be competitive, publicly financing candidates can spend more time meeting their constituents and learning about the issues.

Third, under public financing, public policies are likely more reflective of public preferences and less focused on the desires of wealthy special interests.

In the first two elections (2007 and 2009) under the new system, eight out of 10 candidates won their seats using the new public financing system. Overall campaign spending decreased, and because of the required individual $5 contributions, voters had much more personal contact with candidates. More importantly, the outsized influence of large campaign donors was balanced by more participation from average voters. In 2009, all three mayoral candidates, including the incumbent mayor, ran using public financing. That was a huge victory for clean elections and local democracy.

That victory, however, was short lived. In 2010, in what will surely go down in U.S. history as one of the worst judicial decisions for American democracy, the U.S. Supreme Court in the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission struck down limits on corporate independent expenditures. That decision not only poisoned our national and state elections but blew a huge whole in Albuquerque’s public financing system. Thanks to Citizen’s United, independent PACs (called Measure Finance Committees or MFCs in Albuquerque elections) can now spend unlimited amounts of money supporting or opposing candidates. That effectively undermines the original purpose of public financing, which is to provide an alternative to the oversized power of big money in our elections.

My intention when I first started working with advocates and community members on Albuquerque’s Open and Ethical Elections system was to make it so more people could realistically run for local office. Short of a constitutional amendment, we can’t do much to end unlimited outside spending by PACs and MFCs. However, we can and should improve the current public financing system to make it more feasible for all candidates. Currently, it is difficult for anyone other than incumbents and career politicians with strong partisan ties to qualify. In the 2021 mayor’s race, if the current trend continues, only one candidate — the incumbent — will likely qualify for the more than $750,000 provided by the clean elections fund.

If we want to keep public financing as an option, we must address this barrier as well as make other reasonable reforms to the system. First, the threshold for qualifying for public financing in mayoral races should be cut in half from the current roughly 4,000 $5 contributions to 2,000. Second, the time period for collecting qualifying contributions should be extended from the current 64 days to at least 90 days. Third, oversight and penalties for coordination with MFCs should be improved. Former campaign staff or family members of candidates should not be allowed to run or fund these supposedly independent PACs.

Until we find a solution to the corrosive effects of big money in elections at all levels, we need to make alternatives like the Albuquerque public financing system viable to help change who runs, who they answer to and where their money comes from. It is a small step to improving our democracy, but it matters.