How to Fix Proposed Campaign Finance Reforms in Pasadena

Pasadena City Hall, 2024 (Photo – Sharon Hawley)

This newspaper was perplexed about the Pasadena City Council’s bumbling attempts to “fix” the proposed campaign finance reforms sorely needed in Pasadena, in order to deal “fairly” with the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizen United decision, which allows individuals to donate unlimited amounts of money to their own campaigns.

By Editorial Board

We continue to believe that Citizens United was poorly decided and hope that a future Court revisits this decision, in light of the significant damage it has allowed by opening the floodgates of money of all types into political campaigns. We believe, however, that the City Council can comply with Citizens United and yet institute and implement meaningful and effective campaign finance reforms.

Here’s how Alhambra handled it

Alhambra’s Measure V, which passed overwhelmingly a few years ago, after Citizens United, has a simple yet elegant fix. Citizens United allows individuals to fund their campaign to an unlimited extent, and Measure V recognizes and accepts this reality. But, Measure V requires timely disclosure of all campaign funding, including self-funding, so voters can decide and distinguish between the motivations of potential candidates. Measure V has faith that voters are not dumb, and that voters can draw their own conclusions about why Candidate A chose to self-fund her campaign to the tune of, say, $100,000 while Candidate B went to the effort of collecting small-dollar donations from her friends, neighbors, and colleagues but has only $14,500 in her account. Similarly, the City Council should try trusting Pasadena’s informed voters to be the effective guardrails they are looking for instead of attempting to engineer ever-more convoluted “fixes” against the unfairness of rich and self-funded candidates–all of which will create additional problems in the future and introduce new forms of “unfairness” that will undoubtedly need more “fixes” in the future.

We trust the voters

Colorado Boulevard trusts the voters to make the right decision armed with the timely disclosure of the sources of campaign funding. We also note that Alhambra’s Measure V has an additional feature that does not allow unspent campaign funds (whether from self-funding or otherwise) to accumulate indefinitely in campaign accounts for potential future mischief including transfers to future and different campaign accounts–in effect perpetuating incumbency in another form. Unspent campaign funds have to be drawn down and spent or donated (such as to charitable causes) after a specified time period after the end of an election. We urge the City Council also to adopt this feature so that campaign finance reform is a robust reality in Pasadena.