The Los Angeles City Council Friday will consider major changes that would lower the bar for what is required of candidates to receive public taxpayer matching funds while increasing the amount they could get.
City candidates who currently want access to matching funds must collect donations from at least 200 contributors, although some of the contributions can be as low as $5. But the changes under consideration would lower the number of required contributors to 100 while also increasing the maximum amount of matching funds each candidate can receive and significantly increasing the rate at which they receive them.
The changes are being backed by at least 30 organizations — including the Coalition to Preserve LA, Youth Justice Coalition, Food & Water Watch Los Angeles and California Clean Money Campaign — which wrote in a letter to the City Council that the new rules “would lower the influence of big money in local elections” while the current rules “can impede campaigns from getting started in the first place, especially in less affluent districts.”
The changes were endorsed by the Ethics Commission in August and passed by the Rules, Elections and Intergovernmental Relations Committee last month.
Councilman David Ryu, who co-introduced a motion calling for some of the changes along with Councilmen Paul Krekorian and Joe Buscaino, told the committee that the new rules “will not just support new small donors, but amplify the voice of everyday Angelenos who deserve a seat at the table, and a central role in guiding our city.”
The Ethics Commission agreed with this assessment, writing in a report that “because each district has its own economic realities, it may be more difficult for candidates in some districts to obtain 200 in-district contributions.”
The proposed rule changes would also eliminate the need for candidates to get signatures in order to quality for matching funds.
Currently, qualified candidates who collect 500 valid signatures — which is also the number required to qualify for the ballot — during the nominating petition process receive a match rate of 1:1 in the primary and the general election, and qualified candidates who collect 1,000 valid signatures receive a match rate of 2:1 in the primary and 4:1 in the general.
The new rules would have all qualified candidates receive a match rate of 6:1 in the primary and the general, and the total amount candidates can receive in matching funds would also increase. For City Council candidates, the amount would increase from $100,000 in the primary or $125,000 in the general election to $151,000 in the primary or $189,000 in the general. The city controller, city attorney and mayoral candidates would also see increases, with the mayor’s going from $800,000 in the general election to $1,208,000. The amounts would also have annual adjustments for the consumer price index.
The changes would also reduce how much of each eligible donation the city would match, going from $250 for City Council races to 1/7 of the maximum contribution allowed. For the City Council, the maximum contribution allowed is $800, making the eligible amount for matching funds around $114.
City Council candidates would still need to raise at least $25,000 in donations to qualify for matching funds, while the city controller and city attorney candidates would need $75,000 and mayoral candidates would need $150,000. This has been one of the sticking points for the 30 organizations in favor the changes, and they are asking for the amount to be lowered, arguing it is much higher than other large cities.
“At $25,000 dollars, that’s twice as high as the next highest municipality, Washington D.C., and five times as high as New York City, even though our districts aren’t twice as large,” Rob Quan with Unrig LA told the Rules, Elections and Intergovernmental Relations Committee.
The new rules would also require candidates to participate in either a debate or a town hall meeting where they take questions from the public. Currently, candidates must only agree to debate their opponents, but participating in a debate is not required.
Reducing the number of required donations from 200 to 100 and requiring participation in a town hall or debate are both included in an ordinance set to be voted on, while the other rule changes under consideration would need to be sent to the city attorney to be drafted in an ordinance and then voted on again.
The proposed rule changes come after Councilwoman Nury Martinez has had several of her staff members called to testify before two grand juries regarding campaign contributions she received. According to the Los Angeles Times, a federal grand jury in 2015 and a county grand jury this year have investigated whether some of the small donations Martinez received were fraudulent in an effort to meet the 200-donor threshold and qualify for matching funds, although no charges have been brought against anyone connected to the campaign.