From a post at Washblog:
HB 6221: Public financing, at least locally
By emmettoconnellThu Feb 09, 2006 at 08:04:48 AM PST Section: Diary Topic: Election Reform
Cross posted to Better Donkey.
It is'nt a wide ranging bill as has been passed in Maine or as the Republicans are trying to get rid of in Arizona, but HB 6221 passed the Senate yesterday, which would allow local governments to fund election campaigns. This bill is essentially recreates the rules regarding public financing that were in place prior to the election system reforms in 1993.
As in Arizona, Republicans in Washington aren't exactly supporting this bill either:
Conservative Republicans like Sen. Don Benton of Vancouver blasted thebill as an unconstitutional, illegal and even unethical misuse ofpublic money.
..."The argument againstis, you can't take taxpayer money and give it to candidates," Bentonsaid. "Legally and ethically, you can't do it. ... It sets up a means forlocal governments to dole out taxpayer dollars to their favoritecandidates. It's just plain wrong."
I'm not sure how "favorite" would translate into "anyone that would want to follow the rules," but also as in Arizona, it has been Republicans that have had a hard time following the new money rules.
Go figure.
A wider version of this system, where the state offers financing for legislative candidats that can display wide support (through a certain number of small donations) opens up the politcal process to folks that could never have afforded or had the rich friends to get into elective politics. In the same way that Dan Swecker's full time legislature would have allowed a wider range of people to serve, public financing allows a wide range of people to run in the first place.
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This bill passed through the Senate Committee on Government Operations & Elections, where the 38th LD's Jean Berkey in Vice-chair. Jean actually offered an amendement to the original bill that requires a referendum or other process to require a vote of the people before a city or county may begin public financing of elections. This is a baby step in the process of putting the elections back into the hands of the citizens and we should thank the Senator who voted for this bill.
However, we must now get to work to determine what the process is in our cities and in Snohomish County to get this ball rolling.
Peace,
Chad (The Left) Shue
Mike's Blog Round Up
46 minutes ago
3 comments:
By the way, here is the roll call:
SSB 6221
Senate vote on 3rd Reading & Final Passage
2/8/2006
Yeas: 27 Nays: 22 Absent: 0 Excused: 0
Voting Yea: Senators Berkey, Brown, Doumit, Eide, Fairley, Finkbeiner, Franklin, Fraser, Hargrove, Haugen, Jacobsen, Kastama, Keiser, Kline, Kohl-Welles, McAuliffe, Poulsen, Prentice, Pridemore, Rasmussen, Regala, Rockefeller, Sheldon, Shin, Spanel, Thibaudeau, and Weinstein.
Voting Nay: Senators Benson, Benton, Brandland, Carrell, Deccio, Delvin, Esser, Hewitt, Honeyford, Johnson, McCaslin, Morton, Mulliken, Oke, Parlette, Pflug, Roach, Schmidt, Schoesler, Stevens, Swecker, and Zarelli.
Absent:
Excused:
With the Everett Ciy Charter up for review this year, maybe this could be placed before them. do we know who is on the Charter Review Board?
Jackie,
My reading of the Bill (with the Berkey amendment) and the existing City Charter says that there will need to be a vote of the people to approve an ordinance that would outline public financing. We need to find someone who could work out what that language might be and then try to get the council to submit that ordinance for public vote.
As to the City Charter Review, I have heard no more since the night it was mentioned at the 44th LD meeting by Paul Roberts. I submitted my name to Ray Stephanson and have not heard from him since.
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