Well, much as I don't ike welfare for politicians, and especially those who belly up to the bar Harold Stassen like every two years such as Amanda, I'm going to go out of my way to get a my $ 5.00 check and signature to Sho to get him credibly into the race against Adams.

ABA - anybody but Adams.

Jack, why is it a mixed signal? Presumably Sho actually supports the voter-owned elections system.

Awesome! Now I know where all of Sho's campaign funding will come from, and I'll know EXACTLY how he spent it!

The money is always clean; it only gets dirty when the candidate misuses it. This is a clean CANDIDATE program. Anybody who takes public financing has to be an open book. I think that's a major advantage for the voter.

Amazing!!! I actually agree with the fanatical blue bloods, and with NM..Anybody but Sam the scam.

The other nice thing about voter owned elections is that it is a good bar to jump over. If the candidates have to go out and gather $5.00 from 1000 people out of a population of 571,528 it makes them put together an organization and it takes more than money to get on the ballot. One candidate on the phone can't call and collect from 1000 folks very easily, it takes other people that believe in that candidate. Not a couple of West Hills house parties and phone calls to the usual suspects.

"The money is always clean"

Explain to me again why my tax dollars should support a candidate (who is NOT elected - which is different) I don't agree with.

As an example, if we get a candidate who is running on a platform of outlawing all abortions and gets the 1000 signatures are you OK with that use of public funds?

Right now, we have Sam running around telling us that even with a $30M surplus we are going to have to raise taxes to fix streets yet we can throw out money to get people elected?

Steve's points above, which are not by any means unreasonable, beg the question: how should campaigns for local office be financed? Public money represents waste; private money represents corruption. What else is there?

Private money with complete and instant disclosure and hard dollar limits is probably the best you can do. The dollar limits may be unconstitutional, however.

Jack,

Dollar limits have been thrown out by the courts on a regular basis it seems, but could we set up a requirement that to run for City Council that a person would have a year to gather 9500 signatures and they would have to have at least five from each of the 90+ neighborhood associations.

"how should campaigns for local office be financed?"

Something other than with public funds. The scenario I think that will finally cause our buddies the progressives to abandon this is when the VoE money gets used for propaganda by some enterprising types.

To go further on my example, Mr Mega-Church pastor goes out to his flock and tells them we need to stop abortion now. If 1000 of you (remember mega means 1000+ members) can give $5 to my campaign we can spread the message of the evils of abortion.

He gets $5000 which leverages to $150K. So now he runs for office and litters Portland with a bazillion flyers with graphic images and one small sentence stating he's running for mayor. I mean if Golovan can work the churches (or gun clubs) why can't anyone else once they learn the rules (admittedly which will probably change on a whim)?

I think the adovcates of this system are naive dupes since money is in the system buying influence anyways - no matter what.

Swimmer, I think there would be constitutional or city charter problems with that.

Now I know where all of Sho's campaign funding will come from, and I'll know EXACTLY how he spent it

You should be able to do this already. All candidates with campaigns of any size report this information now.

The irony is that Sho is a prominent member of the downtown business set, and that group was bitterly opposed to "clean money."

And can I infer from today's Trib story that he's going to have Len Bergstein running his campaign? Holy Goldschmidt, Batman, that crew is about as far away from "clean money" as you can get.

Explain to me again why my tax dollars should support a candidate (who is NOT elected - which is different) I don't agree with.

For the same reason my tax dollars go to support a war that I don't agree with. Everyone disagrees with something the government is funding, and no taxpayer should have the ability to unilaterally veto something because they don't agree with it. You have to get 50% of the public to agree with you.

I think you're right, though, that a lot of progressives will abandon public financing once the mega-churches clue in to it. I made that argument when it was first proposed, because religious leaders have a ready-made constituency and could qualify every election, again and again, with no propect of actually winning the election.

Why waste all that necessary time and energy raising funds from friends and supporters and/or why gawd forbid actually spend your own money, when all you gotta do is run on other people's money? And then on top of it you get to sanctimoniously preen that you're helping to "take the money out of politics"? A no-brainer.

"Explain to me again why my tax dollars should support a candidate (who is NOT elected - which is different) I don't agree with.

For the same reason my tax dollars go to support a war that I don't agree with."

That is why I exempted elected officials. We are giving money to people who are not elected and not representing us until they are elected which is the difference.

So, Steve, you'd give public money to incumbents for re-election campaigns, and deny it to their opponents? Would you make them pay it back if they lose?

"you'd give public money to incumbents for re-election campaigns, and deny it to their opponents?"

The intent of my argument was not to use public funds for election campaigns, so, yes, I'd deny incumbents the use of public money.

Strictly speaking if incumbents were using the money for re-election only, they would not be elected officials yet.

I was pretty surprised to hear that Dozono is going with public financing, for two reasons.

First, I assumed he was the PBA's candidate. Looks like maybe he isn't.

Secondly, there are only three weeks left to collect signatures. If he pulls that off, it means he has been working on preparing an organization for quite some time.

Is it possible that he is entering under public financing because he knows it is politically popular but also knows the time frame will prevent him from succeeding... after which he will get bundles from the PBA?

Time will tell, I guess.

That is why I exempted elected officials. We are giving money to people who are not elected and not representing us until they are elected which is the difference.

Steve, my point is that elected officials vote to give taxpayer money to other people all the time, some you agree with and some you don't. This particular government program is for those running for office; another government program gives money to Blackwater to run the war in Iraq. Your personal opposition to the spending of taxpayer dollars on the former matches my personal opposition to spending taxpayer dollars on the latter. Neither of our views matter, though, unless we can convince others to agree with us.

"my point is that elected officials vote to give taxpayer money to other people all the time, some you agree with and some you don't."

OK

On VoE, these people are not elected and do not represent me like elected officials. This is where I have trouble giving public money to unelected officials.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned this old article from WW:

http://wweek.com/editorial/2852/3295/

Portland is so disappointing. Prominent minorities (and there are so few) seem to always turn out to be barely competent lackies for the old white elite. That's just a general observation, not fully supported by the article above.

Once someone is elected by a majority, then it is a representative democracy and that's the system. If we don't like their decisions, too bad, but we give them money anyways.

On VoE, these people are not elected and do not represent me like elected officials. This is where I have trouble giving public money to unelected officials.

I think the reason this is confusing is not that it's subtle; it's just muddled. In all of the examples, including Voter Owned Elections, elected officials are disbursing public funds, and people in other capacities (candidates, incumbent or not, for public office, or government contractors, or soldiers or whatever) taking them.

"In all of the examples, including Voter Owned Elections, elected officials are disbursing public funds, and people in other capacities (candidates, incumbent or not, for public office, or government contractors, or soldiers or whatever) taking them."

Fine, I am stating there should be some limit on what public monies are spent on and helping people run elections is not one of them.

Based on your reaction to Romney, are you going to be comfortable if someone takes his VoE funds to run on the Jesus (or Allah or Mormon) platform? VoE may be a noble idea, but not well thought out in the light of the real world. But then again, this is CoP - so no surprise.

This is pure conjecture, but maybe the public financing is Dozono's way of showing the voters (and the Adams campaign) that he's not a puppet of the PBA. How could he be when he utilizes money from a program the PBA totally opposes?