The city of smotherly love.

I can't afford to buy this gift for each of the committee members:

A worthy tradition: Freedom of speech in America

But it is abundantly clear that they need to read it, or at least certify that they have.

Seriously. You can even order a copy and have it delivered as a gift in care of the The Auditor of Portland.

how is a situation possible with or without VOE, making VOE a mess? Not even a potential mess, an actual mess?

When you spend a fair amount of time blogging on the taxpayers' dime, issues like "Clean Money" are unerstandably difficult to get your head around, Joe.

TJ,

Since Max chose to make an ad hominen attack rather than answer your question, let me take a shot. If you view the goal of VOE as getting ALL private campaign money our of elections then the ability of candiates supporters to run a privately funded campaign along side a public one is troubling. Or perhaps even fatal.

Since the constitution gives me the absolute right to spend my money supporting the candidate of my choice (that little thing called free speech)there is probably little the VOE supporters can do to regulate this little problem away.

Greg C

Mark Bunster, how did you get in here? Please, get back to work at your city job before you get yourself fired for blogging on the clock (from IP address 209.162.223.250).

Independent expenditures are problematic for both regularly run election systems and "voter owned" systems. There is simply no legal way to control them.

However, without the "voter owned" system, would IMHO well-qualified neighborhood activists such as Amanda Fritz or Charles Lewis even be in the game?

I see it as a choose your evil:
With the old system, most of the time the only folks who would run were those already connected to the power levers with the totally major exceptions in relatively recent past of Bud Clark and Tom Potter. However, in both cases I believe there were more people voting against their opponents, Ivancie & Francesconi, than really voting for them. And by connected, I mean tied into the current power structure so that they have access to donors. Remember that Erik Sten worked in Gretchen Kafoury's office prior to running for office and, of course, we have Sam Adams coming directly out of the Katz administration.

On the other hand, I don't deny that the potential is there for abuse of the "voter owned" system where a candidate that already has easy access to major donors (Sho..cough...cough..Dozono) can qualify for the program and possibly end up having their wealthy friends run independent campaigns.

Tough call, but right now I still lean toward the "voter owned" system because I am pleased to see some non-traditional but well-qualified candidates better able to run a campaign that can compete with the more traditional candidates.

It's only limiting free speech if Bush signs the legislation.

And VOE candidates must choose to limit the constitutionally protected free speech of their supporters to $5 each.

Think of it as five dollar speech, rather than "free" speech.

If an independent organization (like the Teamsters, or Mark Weiner's college buddy) decides to buy a billboard, or print up some yard signs....We'll that's their own business. Nothing to do with the candidate whatsoever. Unless Blackmer decides otherwise. Or not.

It just goes to show how rushed and half-baked the whole VOE thing was. I'm not absolutely ideologically opposed to the idea, but the policy itself is myopic at best and criminally negligent at its worst, since there is an agent-principal aspect to what Blackmer and Sten did. In other words, if the policy left loopholes so big that Emily Boyles could fit through them, isn't that gross negligence on the part of Sten and Blackmer? Now more pond scum is seeping through City Auditor Blackmer's internal controls and he's acting like a little mud bath is good for the pores.

Money is the mother's milk of politics.

VOE money is the extra virgin snake oil of progressive politics. An incumbent protection racket wrapped in the blanket of inclusion and populist idealism.

Anybody can run for office in Portland, no matter how unprepared they are to actually serve the public interest.

As each VOE flaw reveals itself, the Clean Money Czar will pour another rule into the ONLY tonic that will cure the despotism of our plutocracy.

FIGHT THE POWER!