More "clean money" for Opie
Oops, that naughty, naughty Ginny Burdick has spent more than $150,000 of private donations on her Portland City Council primary campaign! That means, yes, you guessed it, incumbent Erik Sten gets another $1,387.57 in city tax dollars to spend on his campaign. And for every additional five grand Burdick spends, she's got to report it, and Opie gets to go to the tax trough for another slurp.
Isn't the new public campaign financing "system" working great? Really "levels the playing field," doesn't it? It brings all kinds of new people into politics, and now no one has an advantage.
I'm so glad we didn't get to vote on it.
| Posted at 1:11 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (13)
Erik doesn't get the matching money over $150k automatically - he may request it. When Dan Saltzman reported raising a small amount over $150k earlier in the election, I chose not to file the match request.
Posted by Amanda Fritz | April 28, 2006 7:19 AM
PDXNag's note to Amanda.
If you feel any sense of apprehension about asking for additional matching funds should you also feel any apprehension about spending any money that has already been delivered to you? I think you should.
Would you demand that you not be charged 12 percent interest on money that you might return? Is the interest the cost to borrow or is it a pile-on-penalty to accompany an arbitrary demand for return? It is a higher rate than the actual cost to the city itself to come up with the money that they lent.
Posted by Ron Ledbury | April 28, 2006 10:17 AM
what am I missing? It does level the playing field. Burdick cannot reasonably outspend Sten. Not only has Sten chosen to keep his expenses at 150K, it does Burdick no good to spend more, either. That's exactly what was hoped.
I'm glad we didn't get to vote on it, because then an unfortunate influx of ignorant, uninformed voters might have ruined a successful program that benefits the entire City.
Posted by also also | April 28, 2006 12:22 PM
Thanks for that comment -- your last.
Interesting IP address, though:
Search results for: 216.239.183.254
UNIVERSAL TELECOM USPOPS-BLK-1
(NET-216-239-160-0-1)
216.239.160.0 - 216.239.191.255
City of Portland CITYPDX-1
(NET-216-239-183-0-1)
216.239.183.0 - 216.239.183.255
Posted by Jack Bog | April 28, 2006 12:37 PM
Nice detective work Jack. It looks like someone in City Hall is using the public's money to comment on this "successful program that benefits the entire City"
I still think that the best part of this entire fiasco is that, Susan Francois, the woman who wrote all the rules and regulations for the "voter owned elections system" is quitting her city job to become a NUN. Maybe Eric Sten will follow in her footsteps when he loses.
Posted by ignorant, uninformed voter | April 28, 2006 2:03 PM
It's probably "torrid joe," a.k.a. Mr. "loaded t" or "loadedorygun," who was last banned from here March 13 when using the very same IP address.
Someone who loves Mr. Sten very much. And who has a dedicated IP address at the city. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out who it is -- if it mattered.
Posted by Jack Bog | April 28, 2006 4:27 PM
BTW, please don't compare Susan Francois, who was just doing her job, to Mr. Sten, who doesn't know how to do his. Her religious conviction is genuine -- he says what Mark Weiner tells him it's o.k. to say.
Posted by Jack Bog | April 28, 2006 4:29 PM
Let's not beatify Susan Francois just yet. "Just doing her job" happened to include writing the administrative rules for this system.
I personally was involved in arguing (strenuously and repeatedly) that we should include credit card payments in the $5 qualification process - both in testimony before Council and in email conversations with Susan & Gary. As a side argument, I pointed out that credit cards are verifiable as to donor identity while cash is not.
Susan pulled me aside after my Council testimony and promised that credit card payments would be included via rule -- but then it didn't happen.
There are plenty of proponents of VOE that are right well annoyed that the city elections office prioritized "reducing administrative overhead" over getting it right.
That said, the system is a good thing in principle - and a new elections officer might get the details right the second time around.
Posted by Kari Chisholm | April 29, 2006 8:33 AM
Nice try. You can try to make her the next Matt Brown, but nobody's buying. I have no doubt that every single detail of this was dictated by, or at least cleared through, your client, Erik Sten.
Posted by Jack Bog | April 29, 2006 2:58 PM
Just voted my Republican Ballot:
Jason Atkinson...Governor
Deborah Andrews...Supt of Public Instruction
Jack Roberts...Supreme Court
Julia Philbrook...MultCo. Circuit Court (4th D)
LaVonne Griffin-Valade...MultCo. Auditor
Bernie Giusto...Sheriff
Suzanne Flynn...Metro Auditor
Dave Lister...City Council (Pos. 2)
Dan Saltzman...City Council (Pos. 3)
Ron Ledbury...(write in) for City Auditor
Posted by Alice | April 29, 2006 8:29 PM
We are all so lucky to have Saint Amanda to save us from ..... well, whatever ....probably lack of bad hair on the council to go along with Opie's teeth.......and Saint Amanda won't even take (more) money for saving us.
Amanda is far less and far worse than she would have you believe....if you really want change in the Saltzman race, vote for Sharon Nessett.
Posted by Jim McLaughlin | April 30, 2006 12:27 PM
Wow, bad hair? Are we in high school?
Posted by libertas | May 1, 2006 9:23 AM
Libertas -
Its been quite popular on many threads on this blog site for lots of folks to make fun of Sten's teeth. If its okay for Sten's teeth, its okay for Amanda's hair.
Posted by Jim McLaughlin | May 1, 2006 12:16 PM