Campaign finance reform: an activist who won't give up, a county councilman who never understood

Coleridge

Greg Coleridge won't stop. After the Cuyahoga County Council made it clear it doesn't want to regulate the flow of money in county politics in any way, the longtime activist penned an opinion piece for cleveland.com about the lost opportunity to protect our new county government.

Cleveland.com got councilman Michael Gallagher to write a response. In July, Gallagher took the lead in arguing down the charter commission's proposal to give council the power to regulate campaign donations.

Sadly, embarrassingly, Gallagher's op-ed piece shows he didn't even understand what he and the council rejected. He spends the entire piece arguing against limiting the total amount of money any one political candidate can spend.

No one proposed that.  It's illegal. Courts ruled long ago that you can't stop a candidate from spending money.

What you can limit is how much money any one donor can give a politician. That's the rule in national, state and city of Cleveland elections, in order to keep one or two or three wealthy donors from paying for almost all of a candidate's campaign.

Coleridge sums up Gallagher's mistake with a headline on his blog: "Politician confuses political contribution limits with political spending limits."

County politicians have gotten checks for $25,000, $36,000, $50,000, $300,000, and $400,000 in the past.  Once a candidate takes office, what sort of debt do they feel to the writer of checks that big?

Now ought to be the perfect time to ban jumbo-sized donations.  Jimmy Dimora, the poster boy for county reform, testified last week before a grand jury about suspected illegal activity around the 2005 purchase of the Ameritrust complex. Dimora voted to buy the Ameritrust property from the late Dick Jacobs, who seeded Dimora's first campaign for county commission with a $36,000 check.  The county sold the Ameritrust complex this year -- at an $18 million loss to taxpayers.

Coleridge still hopes the county council will change its mind on campaign finance reform. But what are the odds, when Gallagher doesn't even understand what's possible, and most councilpeople clearly want the issue to go away?  It looks like there's only one way for reform-minded people to create a sane campaign finance system in Cuyahoga County -- a citizens' petition for a charter amendment.

After Cuyahoga council kills campaign finance reform, what's next?

If you want to get really depressed about our local representative democracy, I invite you to watch this video of the Cuyahoga County Council, petulantly refusing to regulate donations to county political campaigns in any way whatsoever.


By a 9-2 vote last week, the council members left the door wide open for gargantuan checks to flood the 2014 race for county executive, and maybe even their own re-election funds. They rejected a charter amendment that would give them the power to regulate donations in races for county executive, council and prosecutor. Single donations of $20,000, $50,000, $100,000, $400,000? It’s all legal!

Take a look at the video, from 43:00 to 1:11:00.  You'll see that allowing a single wealthy donor to dominate a politician’s campaign fund -- and wield way too much influence on them once elected -- doesn’t faze the council.

Councilmen Michael Gallagher and Dan Brady said there’s no evidence of a problem to fix. Sunny Simon said she doesn’t want to limit candidates’ ability to compete with self-funding millionaire candidates. Gallagher and Jack Schron complained that they, as elected officials, already have to follow too many campaign regulations. Council president Ellen Connally said regulating more could create a “chilling effect” on candidates running for office. Some said they didn’t want to be stuck making rules that applied to themselves.

All in all, the council showed lots of concern about themselves and other politicians, and little for the voters who want elected officials to listen to them, not one or two wealthy patrons.

The council’s decision means five- and six-figure donations can play a big role in the 2014 race for county executive. It happened in last year’s race for county prosecutor. One man, local businessman Robert Kanner, gave winning candidate Tim McGinty $50,000 – a quarter of all the money, $203,000, that McGinty raised for the Democratic primary race. That doesn’t necessarily mean Kanner will have undue influence over McGinty –- but doesn’t it at least create the potential for influence, or the appearance of influence?

What about the $36,000 that the late Dick Jacobs gave to Jimmy Dimora’s 1998 campaign for county commissioner? We can’t say that early seed money influenced Dimora’s bad decision to buy the Ameritrust complex from Jacobs in 2005. But since prosecutors alleged yesterday that Dimora leaked secret information about the Ameritrust deal, isn’t this at least an example of why one local businessman shouldn’t be able to give that much money?

Two councilpeople voted yes on the campaign finance amendment, Julian Rogers and Dave Greenspan.

“I think it helps to build trust if people know that they can’t necessarily buy influence from their county council person,” says Rogers. “The way it’s currently set, one person can make a contribution that funds an entire campaign for a county councilperson.” (Rogers says he spent about $47,000 on his campaign.)

“Where the county has come from, appearances mean a lot,” he adds. Donor limits are “an opportunity to continue the good effort we’ve begun to bolster our standing in the community and bring back some trust.”

Local activist Greg Coleridge, who’s worked for years to try to regulate money in local elections, says the council’s refusal was disappointing and surprising. He says rejecting the power to regulate campaign finance at all sends a terrible message.

“Hey, we’re open for business!” Coleridge says. “We’re the Wild West! There’s no limits, no enhanced disclosure… Pay to play! Here we are!”

Amid the council members’ self-serving arguments, I also heard resigned cynicism. They know it’s hard to create campaign finance reform in the wake of court cases such as the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision. Gallagher said he feared donor limits would lead the wealthy to form PACs to go around them – a possibility, but one that’s rare on the local level. Brady complained about Citizens United’s protection of anonymous campaign literature. He and Chuck Germana voted no on the charter amendment, saying public financing of campaigns is the only way to make a difference.

“In a sense, we agree with council,” says Coleridge. He’s part of the Move to Amend effort to overturn Citizens United with a constitutional amendment. “You’re not going to find an absolute loophole-free set of campaign contribution limits.

“In the meantime, to throw up your hands and say we shouldn’t even do anything is sending the message that those who have the most money will have their voices heard loud and clear. And it sends the perception that those who don’t have money, their voices are not going to be heard.”

Coleridge served on a transition panel that recommended sweeping ideas for clean county elections to the new government in 2011, including public financing for county campaigns. The panel’s ideas were ignored.

I think council’s refusal to act on donor limits opens up a chance for reformers to go big. They could start a petition drive for a clean elections charter amendment much like the 2011 proposal: donor limits, electronically searchable campaign reports, and public financing that helps candidates without wealthy supporters to compete.

It wouldn’t be easy. It takes more than 33,000 signatures to get a charter amendment on the ballot. But it’s not impossible. The charter’s framers gathered more than 70,000 signatures to get our new form of government on the 2009 ballot. Coleridge’s group recently collected more than 3,000 signatures for its Move to Amend petition in Cleveland Heights alone.

So far, I’m not hearing anyone in town who’s ready to take this issue directly to the voters. But campaign finance limits are exactly the sort of issue the initiative process was created to address. Voters know that a single wealthy businessperson shouldn’t be able to singlehandedly fund a candidate’s campaign. But the political system won’t do anything about it. Will we?

How to ban big money from Cuyahoga Co. elections

It’s time to finish the job of reforming Cuyahoga County government.

Today, the charter review commission releases its proposed amendments to the county charter. Most of its ideas would tweak the checks and balances in our new government -- making it harder for the county executive to fire the sheriff, for example, or writing the job of inspector general into the charter. 

But the best idea is designed to keep big money out of our elections and preserve our political leaders’ independence. It’s an amendment that would give the county council the duty to write campaign finance laws to govern county elections, including limits on campaign donations. 

Right now, wealthy donors can give unlimited contributions to a county executive or county council candidate – checks so big, they practically obligate candidates to give the donor special access once in office.  Five- and six-figure political donations are perfectly legal, even though they can drown out the voices of small donors and non-donors.

“Nationwide, not just this county, the funding of campaigns has gotten totally out of control,” says Bruce Akers, chairman of the charter review commission and a co-author of the 2009 charter.

“You can’t tell me that when candidate Jones or Smith gets elected and someone’s given him six or seven figures … [that it] doesn’t have influence,” Akers says. “There’s got to be some kind of parameters.”

A charter amendment may be the only way Cuyahoga County can limit big-money donations in its elections. Check out this quote from the Secretary of State’s Ohio Campaign Finance Handbook (pdf):

County or local candidates are not limited in the amount of contributions they may receive… unless there is a municipal or county charter that provides otherwise.

The old county government gave us a great example of the need for donor limits. The late developer Dick Jacobs gave Jimmy Dimora $36,000 and Peter Lawson Jones $25,000 in their first races for the old county commission. In 2005, Dimora and Jones voted to buy the vacant Ameritrust complex from Jacobs for almost $22 million. Jacobs got rid of a skyscraper albatross; taxpayers got stuck with it and took a big financial loss.

Can we do better?

Campaign finance reform faces three hurdles. First, the county council would have to vote to put the amendment on November’s ballot. Voters would have to approve it. Then the council would have to use its new power and enact meaningful limits -- in 2014, the year that half of them run for reelection.

That’s hardly a sure thing. Council members may be reluctant to limit donations to their own campaigns. It’s hard to raise a lot of small donations, easier to find a few wealthy sugar daddies.

“It’s difficult for officeholders to put a restriction on themselves,” Akers says. “That’s human nature.”

Which is why Akers and charter commission member William Tarter, Jr., have another idea. In a minority report, they’ve proposed an alternative charter amendment that would require Cuyahoga County to adopt the same campaign finance limit Ohio imposes in state races: currently $12,300. If the council were to put that on the ballot, voters could ban enormous, out-of-control donations in time for the 2014 county executive and council election.

The downside of Tarter and Akers’ idea is that a $12,300 limit is still too high. In races for president or Congress, a donor can only give a candidate $2,600 a year. In elections for Cleveland mayor and city council, it’s $1,000. Lower limits would do more to keep big donors from drowning out the voices of small donors and non-donors. Would the county council go for that?

Maybe – if enough people get behind campaign-finance reform and pressure the council to act.

It makes sense for us to debate how to choose a clerk of courts, protect the inspector general, and change sheriffs. But we can’t let those debates distract from the most important one we need to have this summer: how to keep big money from controlling our new government.

Update, 3:30 pm: Here is the charter review commission's report, which proposes 15 amendments to the county charter. The campaign finance proposal is on page 10.  Tarter and Akers' minority report is on p. 41.

“In 2010,” Tarter and Akers note, “one county candidate received $400,000 from a single individual.” They're thinking of Matt Dolan, who got $400,000 from his uncle, Charles Dolan of Cablevision, and $300,000 from his father, Indians owner Larry Dolan.

I'll write about the other major amendments later this month.

Will unlimited donations flood county exec race?

How much money should a single wealthy person be allowed to give candidates for Cuyahoga County executive?

$1,000? $5,000? $12,000? $25,000?

How about $100,000? $300,000? Or $400,000?

Guess what? Due to a huge gap in the law, there’s no limit to what one person can donate to a candidate for county office.

This hole is big enough to buy a government through. It should’ve been plugged when we got a new county government. But proposals to fix it have gone nowhere.

Now, there’s finally some hope for change. Cuyahoga County’s charter review commission is considering two proposals to cut off the unlimited flow of money starting in 2014. It’s set to debate both ideas at its meeting Saturday morning, the 15th.*

It’s time for someone to act. Candidates are already running to succeed Ed FitzGerald next year – and right now, millionaires are free to invest five-figure or six-figure donations in them, in hopes of getting VIP access once they’re in office.

Races for federal, state, and Cleveland offices have sensible limits on one person’s ability to influence a candidate with donations. You can only give a candidate for president or Congress $2,600 a year. In Cleveland’s mayor and city council races, it’s $1,000. Ohio has much higher limits on donations to candidates for state office -- $12,300 this year – but that’s better than nothing.

The framers of the new county charter should have established limits on donations in 2009. But they didn’t. They unwisely punted the decision to the very elected leaders who stand to benefit from big donations.

During the transition to the new government, an advisory group suggested limits of $750 per election cycle to county council candidates and $1,000 to candidates for executive and prosecutor.

But the new county council failed to act. It debated whether to adopt the statewide limits of $12,300 as its own, or lower limits, but did neither.

Now, the charter review commission -- which has until July 1 to propose amendments to the county charter -- is considering two campaign finance reform ideas.

One proposed amendment would explicitly give the county council the power or duty to enact campaign finance laws, including limits on donations. That would prod the council to act.

The other comes from charter commission member William Tarter. He proposes amending the county charter to establish the same limit per donor in county races as in state races, $12,300.

Tarter says limits on huge contributions help empower smaller donors. “This is an opportunity for people to feel their contribution has a greater impact on the candidates,” he says.

Bruce Akers, chairman of the charter review commission, says the panel is “very divided” on the subject of campaign finance. Some members support Tarter’s idea. Others support new charter language that would nudge the council to act. One member is opposed to taking any action about campaign finance at all.

Citizens who want to limit big money’s influence on our local politics ought to get involved in this debate right away. But they face a dilemma. Should they back Tarter’s more specific proposal to link county donor limits to the state’s high limits? Or back an amendment that would put the issue back before the county council -- which might enact lower limits, but might enact none at all?

Tarter’s proposal would, at least, stop the biggest checks from flowing. And the last race for county executive proves it’s time to make a change.

In 2010, candidate Matt Dolan got contributions of $400,000 from his uncle, Charles Dolan of Cablevision, and $300,000 from his father, Indians owner Larry Dolan. The next six-figure donations may not be a family affair.

Big checks flowed to the old county government too. Before the late developer Dick Jacobs sold the Ameritrust complex to Cuyahoga County in 2005, he had a five-figure donor relationship with commissioners Jimmy Dimora and Peter Lawson Jones. Jacobs seeded their first campaigns for commission seats, giving Dimora $36,000 in 1998 and Jones in 2002.

Maybe Jacobs’ donations had nothing to do with the county’s unwise purchase of the Ameritrust complex, which led to an $18 million loss for taxpayers. But it’s a spectacular example of why no single donor should dominate an elected leader’s campaign fund -- and why campaign finance limits are the Cuyahoga County reform effort's biggest unfinished business.

*Update, 6/10: I originally wrote that the charter commission would discuss campaign finance "this Saturday," meaning the 8th. The commission ended up not tackling it on the 8th.  It'll take up the question on the 15th.

What about campaign finance reform?

Ed FitzGerald and the county council want to make 10 changes in Cuyahoga County's charter, and they want to do it soon.

They want to write the inspector general into the charter (good idea), give the law department more power (a revival of their turf war with prosecutor Bill Mason), put the fiscal officer in charge of the treasurer's office (OK), and make some minor shifts in who does what. They aim to put all their ideas on the ballot this fall. 

But one big issue is missing from their to-do list.  What about campaign finance reform?

Political donors face limits on how much money they can give to federal candidates, state candidates, and candidates for Cleveland mayor and city council.  But there are no limits for giving to candidates for county-wide office.

That's why the late Dick Jacobs was able to donate $36,000 to Jimmy Dimora's first campaign for county commissioner in 1998, and give Peter Lawson Jones $25,000 when he ran for commission in 2002.  Dimora, Jones, and Tim Hagan then bought the Ameritrust complex from Jacobs in 2005 for $21.7 million. It was the unwise purchase of the decade.

Maybe gratitude for that early seed money played no part in the Ameritrust decision.  But isn't it at least a cautionary tale about how no one person should play such a dominant role in a politician's campaign fund?

The big money got even bigger in 2010. Matt Dolan, Republican candidate for county executive, got contributions of $400,000 and $300,000 from his uncle, Charles Dolan of Cablevision, and his father, Indians owner Larry Dolan. 

The charter's framers should have created campaign finance limits up front, rather than leave it to politicians who rely on contributions to run for re-election.  They didn't.

How about contribution limits of $750 per election cycle to county council candidates and $1,000 to candidates for executive and prosecutor? That's what an advisory group working on the charter transition proposed. The idea went nowhere.

Instead, county councilman David Greenspan proposed an ordinance in July that would set the contribution limit really high -- at $12,000.  And even that extremely mild reform has been languishing in the rules committee, which Greenspan chairs, ever since.

You would think that FitzGerald would push for campaign contribution limits, if only to protect himself from a financial assault similar to Dolan's in 2014.  Not so.

If FitzGerald and the council don't take action, citizens will have to.  Campaign finance reform should be the first thing the charter review commission tackles when it convenes in September.