As a longtime Montgomery County resident and taxpayer, I write to precise alarm about county govt candidate Tom Hucker’s statements that he would possibly swap to the county’s public finance system after elevating lots of of 1000’s of {dollars} principally from PACs, firms and rich donors, exterior the general public system and the system’s limits.
Hucker has floated this concept of presumably switching to public financing on “The Politics Hour With Kojo Nnamdi” on WAMU in November (beginning at 41:30), in Bethesda Beat tales and in a written response to a query posed throughout a candidate discussion board.
The County Council established the public financing system for candidates who comply with reject company and PAC cash and restrict particular person contributions to no more than $250. For each greenback of permitted particular person contributions, the county contributes a beneficiant match of {dollars} from taxpayers, as much as a complete of $750,000 for county govt candidates.
The aim of the regulation is to allow common folks to face on equal footing with well-financed candidates who so typically have a disproportionate voice.
I can not fathom that it was the intention of county voters or the council to permit candidates to comb up giant donations from firms and rich people, then swap to the general public finance system and obtain taxpayer {dollars}. However, it seems that is Hucker’s plan.
Permitting this may fly within the face of the clear legislative intent to even the enjoying subject, misuse taxpayer {dollars} and create an unfair drawback for individuals who observe the general public finance guidelines all through the method.
Public funding is for candidates who reject PAC and company donations. That’s clear from the legislative historical past.
For the 12 months ending January 2022, Hucker raised almost $200,000 earlier than he’ll determine whether or not to make use of the general public finance system. (The January 2022 candidate committee report will be discovered on Maryland’s marketing campaign finance web site underneath “Hucker, Tom Mates of.”)
The majority of these {dollars} could be prohibited underneath public financing — from firms, actual property trade, and a few rich donors writing checks of as much as $6,000, for instance.
The truth is, solely about 23% of the whole {dollars} Hucker raised over the previous 12 months would have been allowed underneath the donation limits in place for the general public finance system.
Within the curiosity of disclosure, I donated $250 to Hucker’s marketing campaign in February 2021 after I thought he was working for re-election to the County Council. When he determined to run for county govt as an alternative, I requested him to refund my donation and he did.
In January 2022, I donated $250 to Council Member Hans Riemer’s marketing campaign for county govt. He’s utilizing the general public financing system.
I additionally donated $150 to Marc Elrich’s first county govt marketing campaign in 2018. He additionally was utilizing public financing in that race and is doing so on this 12 months’s race.
To be clear, I’m not implying that Hucker acted unlawfully in gathering these donations, as a result of he was not working underneath the general public finance system. However having constructed a battle chest with particular curiosity cash that the general public finance system prohibits, he shouldn’t be allowed to change over and gather taxpayer {dollars}.
A bit posted by the Brennan Heart for Justice says it nicely: “Public financing is probably the most highly effective reform accessible to deal with the troubling developments of massive cash in politics. It lifts up the voices of normal folks and frees candidates from dependence on rich particular pursuits.”
There’s a actual threat of diminishing public help for our county’s public finance system when voters notice their tax {dollars} are getting used to pad marketing campaign coffers constructed with huge donations from company entities, PACs, and rich people.
What’s subsequent? Ought to the candidates who attain the max within the public finance system drop out and begin gathering “huge cash” contributions? That may flip this program — a nationwide mannequin when it was enacted — right into a meaningless slush fund.
Hucker ought to publicly disavow any plan to shift to public financing after having raised important funds exterior the general public financing system.
If that is allowed, the County Council should act now to amend the regulation. The council should shield the integrity of this method or abolish it as a sham. There’s an excessive amount of at stake to do in any other case.
Cheryl Gannon lives in Silver Spring. She is a retired skilled lobbyist and PAC director and was a Democratic precinct chair in Montgomery County. She will not be engaged on the marketing campaign of any candidates.
***
Notice from Managing Editor Andy Schotz: Bethesda Beat invited Hucker to reply to Gannon’s criticism and clarify his reasoning, by means of an addendum to her piece. In a cellphone dialog, I summarized for Hucker the substance of Gannon’s feedback. As a substitute, Hucker’s marketing campaign supervisor, Dave Kunes, responded on his behalf. Kunes wrote in an e-mail:
“Public financing is a vital possibility for candidates. We now have public financing in Montgomery County partly as a result of Tom Hucker led a marketing campaign to move state laws that led to native public financing a few years in the past. And Tom has at all times voted to fund our county public financing regulation.
“Nonetheless, our county regulation has an essential flaw. Many different public financing legal guidelines embody a set off that permits publicly financed candidates to qualify for extra funds in the event that they face a self-financing rich opponent. Our regulation is flawed as a result of it doesn’t.
“After 20 years of group organizing and public service to Montgomery County, Tom has the broadest coalition of grassroots supporters behind him. However he doesn’t have the super sources of his opponents on this race. Mr. Blair has many hundreds of thousands of his personal wealth that he has spent in a earlier marketing campaign and expects to spend this 12 months. Mr. Elrich has a multi-million-dollar public relations operation funded by county tax {dollars} that promotes all his day by day exercise to the media and the general public.
“We are going to decide relating to which path offers our marketing campaign the very best probability of successful nearer to the deadline. Like every marketing campaign, that’s our duty to our supporters. We’re pleased with all of the help now we have gathered, together with quite a few small enterprise homeowners, civic affiliation leaders, religion leaders, academics, well being care employees and many others who all agree — now we have to get our colleges out of disaster, get our economic system shifting once more, create protected housing and get transit shifting.”
***
Bethesda Beat encourages readers to ship us their ideas about native subjects now we have coated for consideration as a letter to the editor or op-ed piece in our Saturday publication. Electronic mail them to editorial@bethesdamagazine.com. Listed here are our pointers. We require a reputation and hometown for publication. We additionally require a cellphone quantity (not for publication) for us to confirm who wrote the letter. Please present a supply for any info in your letter that weren’t a part of our protection; if they’ll’t be verified, they possible will probably be omitted. We don’t settle for any submissions from a 3rd get together; it should come immediately from the author. We don’t settle for any items which have been revealed or submitted elsewhere.