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self-financing limits and rules; public campaign voucher programs

Posted: Tue Mar 16, 2021 5:02 pm
by Greg Casar
Colleagues:

For decades our community has worked on public campaign finance programs. In 2018, our charter review commission recommended a voucher program for public campaign finance. Their recommendations included a cap on self-financing of campaigns that are participating in the public voucher system, while allowing for 'seed money.' Since then, there has been continued community conversation on public campaign vouchers.

I believe we should incorporate more of this community feedback into city code. I support caps on self-finance for those campaigns that participate in public programs and vouchers. Such a cap exists in our current public campaign finance program (fair campaign contracts) at about $4,000 for city council and $6,000 for Mayor. For the sake of simplicity, I think a $5,000 cap overall makes good sense for voucher programs. We've also heard from community members that any Austin resident who wants to (and can) donate to a campaign should be allowed to participate in the voucher program, regardless of whether or not they're currently registered to vote. I agree.

I've worked with the Law department on the following draft to address these issues: http://assets.austintexas.gov/austincou ... 145941.pdf
I hope to move this forward in the coming weeks. I look forward to your questions, thoughts, or interest in co-sponsoring-- feel free to contact me directly or to post here.

Greg