Category: Elections and Voting

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The second time as farce

  By Elections and Voting, My 2007 Campaign

The spate of challenges by progressives to their competitors reminds me of the famous lines of Karl Marx: “Hegel says that history repeats itself. He forgets to add, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.” If the first time was the establishment’s use of technical challenges to undermine progressives, the second time is the progressives’ use of the same kinds of challenges to undermine their competitors. I certainly understand why candidates working incredibly hard to win an election are inclined to use every means in the book to do so. And I also understand why they are tempted to use the old guard’s tactics against the old guard, especially when so many of us have suffered because of those tactics. But revenge is never a good motive to do anything. All these challenges on the basis of the statement of financial interests are not really in keeping… Continue reading

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Help save campaign finance reform

  By Campaign Finance Reform, Elections and Voting, Philadelphia

This week City Council will consider Bill No. 060629, which in its unamended form would gut the city’s limits on campaign contributions and be a major step backwards in the effort to reform politics in Philadelphia. You can help stop 60629—or even better, have it improved by amendment—by signing a petition which will be delivered to your Council members Thursday morning. Bill 60629, which is sponsored by Councilman Goode, would, in its original form, define a candidate as someone who has filed nominating petitions or declared his or her candidacy for office. The result would be that there would be no limits on how much money a candidate could raise before early March of an election year. (See below for information about an amendment Goode proposed today that may fix this problem) Goode claimed that his ordinance would prohibit candidates from using money that exceeds the finance limits ($2500 for… Continue reading

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Reforming political campaigns by reducing the cost of TV

  By Campaign Finance Reform, Elections and Voting

Hannah Miller has written a lovely post over at YPP about the importance of reducing the cost of our political campaigns by providing low cost television advertising. The logic of Hannah’s argument ultimately leads to the conclusion that Ray Murphy reaches in a comment on that post: Comcast ought to provide free time for political advertising as well as for televised debates and other election focused media events. (And, by the way, it really is about time that the city held Comcast to its contractual agreement to provide public access TV so that we have an alternative to corporate owned media in the city. You can read all about this issue at http://www.phillyaccess.org/.) Comcast has a right to operate in the city because it holds a franchise that must be approved by Council. The contract that defines that franchise could be written to require free or low cost television advertising.… Continue reading

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Time for Comcast to be a good citizen

  By Elections and Voting, Public Policy

At YPP,  Hannah Miller agued that Comcast should be making reduced price or free television advertisements available to all political candidates. (Link coming soon.) The logic of Hannah’s argument ultimately leads to the conclusion that Ray has reached: Comcast ought to provide free time for political advertising as well as for televised debates and other election focused media events. (And, by the way, it really is about time that the city held Comcast to its contractual agreement to provide public access TV so that we have an alternative to corporate owned media in the city. You can read all about this issue at http://www.phillyaccess.org/.) Continue reading

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More on public financing

  By Elections and Voting

I am reposting something I posted in response to a debate at Young Philly Politics, which began with a good post from Hannah Miller. ——– There is no one solution to the campaign financing mess. Hannah is right: we need free TV time for candidates. We also have to ban candidates who take the free time from purchasing additional media time. That would make campaigning less expensive. But Hannah and Neil Oxman are wrong about public financing. This is one area where there really is no trade-off between spending on schools or economic development and spending on public financing of campaigns. Continue reading

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Why and how we should make voting easier

  By Elections and Voting, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Yesterday I joined a group of political activists who met with the leadership of the Committee of Seventy to urge the group to take the lead in pushing some new efforts to make it easier for people to vote. We hope a number of new initiatives will come out of our conversations, including greater efforts on the part of our city and state government and public and private businesses organizations like PGW, the Water Department, Comcast, and Verizon to inform citizens about when and how to register to vote and about when and where to vote. Continue reading

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Why We Need Public Financing of Campaigns

  By Campaign Finance Reform, Elections and Voting

Testimony of Marc Stier City Council Committee of the Whole Hearingon the Public Financing of Political Campaigns April 26, 2006 President Verna, Members of Council, I want to first thank Councilmembers Verna and Tasco for introducing the resolution that created this hearing on a subject very important to the future of Philadelphia. And I also thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am speaking today in part as a political activist and one-time political candidate but more so as a political scientist who has studied and written about the theory and practice of democracy for thirty years. (You will thus excuse me if I write at a little longer length—as it is an occupational hazard of being an academic.) I will testify today about why I think it would be desirable for Philadelphia to adopt some system of public financing of election campaigns. At a future hearing, I… Continue reading

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The Politics of HB 1318

  By Elections and Voting

Some folks think that the Republicans in Harrisburg are in a win-win situation. They would like to enact policies to reduce the number of voters. But they know that for strictly political reasons, if no other, Governor Rendell has to veto HB1318. So they hope to embarrass the Governor by tying him to “voter fraud” and by reminding people of the controversy during the 2004 election when some Republicans accused the Rendell administration of not giving enough time for military ballots to be counted. So let us make sure that we remind everyone that there is no evidence of serious, widespread voter fraud in Pennsylvania. If the Republican controlled legislature wants to be concerned with political reform, they can begin by regulating lobbying in Harrisburg. Continue reading

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A First Step to Public Financing

  By Elections and Voting, Philadelphia

A few days after the November general election, and the tremendous victory for the Ethics Reform Charter Change, I started talking to other members of the Ethics Reform Coalition about public financing of our political campaigns. Many of us had talked on and off about public financing of campaigns as our ultimate goal. But few thought that we had any real chance of adopting this dramatic reform anytime soon. First there was the business of creating an independent Ethics Board and strengthening limits on campaign contributions for those who receive contracts and other benefits from the city. Legislation to accomplish these tasks was adopted by City Council in early December of last year. Even when that was done, most reformers thought we were in for a long wait before public financing of campaigns came to Philadelphia. Continue reading