Public Financing of Elections

Next Tuesday, September 30, 2014, starting a little after 11am in the County Council chamber in Rockville, the MoCo Council is scheduled to consider a bill to establish public financing of elections in our county. 

Most good government people like the idea of public financing of elections. They feel it will prevent wealthy individuals from contributing too much to candidates, and it will prevent candidates from becoming too beholden to large contributors.

Others question if public financing of elections has worked in other places where it has been tried. They also question if it will create more problems than it will solve.

One of the amendments proposed by the MoCo Government Operations (GO) Committee would allow government matching funds for contributions from people outside our county, friends and relatives of candidates. That was not allowed in the original bill by Council Member Phil Andrews and it passed the GO Committee only 2-1. It will likely come up again next Tuesday.

Another issue that was raised in the GO Committee is whether a candidate would be allowed to buy an ad in a souvenir booklet of the Dem or Rep Central Committee. That is one of the main sources of funds for these parties, but the State bill authorizing the County to have public financing of elections appears to prohibit this. This is likely to be an issue at the MoCo Council and/or the Maryland General Assembly, too.