Curiouser and curiouser

Public financing of Portland elections, which began as a dumb idea, has disgraced itself down assorted rabbit holes ever since
Thursday, March 13, 2008
The Oregonian
Original story here

Were Alice in the wonderland that is Portland, where taxpayers pay people to run for public office, she surely would note that things keep getting curiouser and curiouser.

Wednesday, a system purposefully crafted to create the proverbial "level playing field" on which political rookies could take on establishment insiders was once again seen to be doing exactly the opposite.

Welcome to topsy-turvyland.

Portland City Hall.

In council chambers Wednesday, commissioners exchanged lots of more or less -- especially less -- polite words in an effort to imply skulduggery without actually seeming to accuse. It was as though Ms. Manners were watching over the proceedings, making sure all would play nice.

We face no such limitation.

Make no mistake about what just went on here. In the process of setting the rules by which voters would select a successor to retiring Commissioner Erik Sten, the city's so-called "voter-owned election" system was artfully gamed for the advantage of the quintessential insider, the fellow currently working as chief of staff to the very commissioner he seeks to replace.

When public financing of elections first was pitched as fresh and full of promise, a qualifying candidate who pledged to limit his or her spending was set to receive about $150,000 for a primary campaign, more in matching funds if a privately funded opponent raised more money, and even more for a runoff.

But no plans were drawn for special elections, certainly not one spurred by the departure of a city commissioner who had himself used public funding to run for office, then quit midterm. So when the council last week approved an ordinance to treat the special election to choose Sten's successor as though it were a general election, four of its members did not quite "understand the implications" -- as Commissioner Randy Leonard so politely put it. The exception was Sten, who quite clearly understood the implication for Jim Middaugh, his chief of staff.

Were Middaugh to get into a runoff against Nick Fish, his leading, and privately funded, opponent, he would receive a whopping $200,000 financial windfall to spend in a 59-day campaign.

Goodbye, candidate Fish.

Hello, Commissioner Middaugh.

Enough people cried foul that Mayor Tom Potter managed Wednesday to persuade the council to reconsider its decision. The council decided to go back to the Citizens Campaign Commission to ask for further counsel.

We can hardly think of a worse place to turn than the commission, which on Monday strongly backed the $200,000 campaign buster for the insider candidate. At the conclusion of this week's debacle, Sten conceded that in terms of public financing of elections, "We're learning as we go."

We've learned all we want. Portland's system of "voter-owned elections" is turning into a City Hall protection act.