Defenders of clean elections –
WHAT: Stop a raid on the public campaign financing fund!
WHEN: This Tuesday morning, the 24th, 8:30AM sharp
WHERE: Room 416, City Hall
PLEASE RSVP: We'll need lots of people there
Even as we get traction in our efforts to help pass a federal public
campaign funding bill, our public funding system in San Francisco is
under threat.
Last year, Mayor Newsom, who has not supported our efforts to bring
cleanly financed elections to San Francisco, tried to raid the public
campaign financing fund. Back then, there was no budget shortfall, and
so a program was created, "SF Promise," whose funding it was said,
would be taken from the public financing fund. Even though the cost of
this program was only $525,000 in the first year, the Mayor proposed
removing $6 million from the public financing fund for it. You can read
these numbers in their own press release. But with the
help of Supervisor Peskin, we funded SF Promise from the general fund
reserve, and the plan was defeated.
But, now that we have a budget shortfall, they're back again.
While most programs are being cut between 5% - 20%, the Mayor is
proposing a 300% cut to the public financing fund -- not just
cutting
our annual allocation, but actually removing 2 years of allocations out
of the fund in one fell swoop. The fund, which now covers both mayoral
and supervisorial elections, would be reduced in size from $9.3M to
$4.3M. According to the Director of Ethics Commission, just to meet the
minimum baseline funding for the next mayoral race would require no
fund raids after this year, continued baseline funding, AND will
probably require a supplemental appropriation.
The Ethics Commission has called a special meeting to consider whether
to give their blessing to this plan this Tuesday morning at 8:30am, and
we need the help of all of you, to soundly defeat this proposal. This
one is going to be difficult, truly, so please make it. Our most
friendly commissioner is on vacation, and the mayor's appointee will
probably be against us, leaving 3 votes up for grabs. We need a
majority to take the wind out of the sails of this plan.
A special meeting was called for this item, so it will be the only
thing on the agenda, meaning it shouldn't take a huge amount of your
time.
Can you make it? This is an important one. Please RSVP and let me know.
Otherwise, I'll have to
spend all day phone banking on Monday : )
Rob Arnow
San Franciscans for Voter Owned Elections
www.voterownedelections.org
415-552-2229