Oak Park and ICPR Hold Meeting to Discuss Small Donor Programs

There were many questions for ICPR Executive Director David Melton but also many initial expressions of interest when he spoke to a group of Oak Parkers gathered at the Oak Park Public Library on July 2 to learn more about small donor matching systems.

Melton was the primary speaker, invited by the forum convener, Oak Park Village President Anan Abu-Taleb. Also joining the panel discussion were Village Trustee Adam Salzman and Library Board member Matt Baron. About 40 people attended, including ICPR Board Member Michelle Jordan, who traveled from Evanston for the event.

The forum was part of a new ICPR initiative on small donor matching systems, in which it is working with Oak Park, Evanston and other communities.

Melton laid out the basic concept of the system, in which candidates who reach a designated threshold in small contributions are eligible to have those funds matched up to a specific amount. Given that tax payers may be concerned about spending tax dollars on the program, the municipality could work with a separate not-for-profit funding program.

Melton described the system as a way to reduce the influence of big money in politics and also encourage more qualified candidates to run for local office without spending a bunch of their own money or raising money from moneyed interest. Long-term, another goal of the small donor matching system is to rein in the overall cost of campaigns, he said.

Among questions raised at the forum were the following:

• How does a municipality determine the appropriate amount for running a competitive campaign for local office in that community?
• Will taxpayers be willing to fund campaigns with so many urgent local government needs to be met?
• Is there evidence that small donor matching systems increase the pool of local candidates by encouraging more people to run? And do these systems encourage greater diversity of candidates? (Note: ICPR Director Jordan described the likelihood of more women candidates as a strong selling point).
• Is there a viability test? How do you assure that a recipient of matching funds has a political base that makes him or her a viable candidate?
• How would Oak Park budget for this?
• What would need to happen for this to take place in Oak Park? A referendum? Ordinance?
• What happens when candidates accept matching funds but their opponents opt out and raise a sizeable campaign warchest?

To that final question about better-financed opponents who opt out of the matching system, Melton said there could be a self-policing dynamic at work in a local community, where the candidate who opts out must explain why to citizens who support for the small donor matching system. Several heads nodded in agreement.

To read more, please click on this link to a story in the Wednesday Journal, Oak Park’s widely read independent weekly newspaper.