jonetta rose barras: Money for losing campaigns?

In the middle of a pandemic that shattered the national and local economy, DC’s elected and finance officials decided to press ahead with several newly launched initiatives that tapped critical resources, including public funding for campaigns under the  Fair Elections Amendment Act of 2018. Consider, for example, that the city spent $2,595,904.55 of the public’s money financing primary, special and general election campaigns of about 30 political candidates, according to a report posted on the website of the DC Office of Campaign Finance (OCF). 

The law, approved by the DC Council and signed by Mayor Muriel Bowser, required OCF officials to provide a 5-to-1 money match for candidates who met the threshold of small donor contributions from District residents. While a cap was set on the total that could be collected from public funds for this 2020 election season, it was no meager amount: Candidates for a ward-based council seat could receive as much as $241,055; those for an at-large council seat could collect $308,639.

Chander Jayaraman received $139,904 for his at-large council bid; in that same race Will Merrifield collected $83,050. Former Ward 2 DC Council member Jack Evans, who tried to win back the seat from which he resigned earlier this year, pulled in $92,825 for his primary run; Jordan Grossman, who sought Evans’ old job, collected $212,691.55 and then another $92,382.30 for the special election. In the Ward 7 primary race, Kelvin Brown received $72,245. Over in Ward 8, during that primary, Michael Austin drew down $77,425 of taxpayer funds.   

Those were some of the losing candidates. 

Were those expenditures worth it? Should that money have been spent during a year when the city has struggled to find funds to protect low-income families from evictions and close the digital divide for their children who attend public schools?

Locked into their support for the law, Fair Elections Program advocates undoubtedly will respond with a resounding yes. They likely will cite the staggering number of people who ran in the at-large council race as proof that the law did what they claimed it would: Allow for a wider, more diverse field of candidates. Interestingly, some of those same advocates have decried the size of that field as evidence that the council should pass ranked-choice voting.

Is it a blessing or a curse? Who knows?

DC Auditor Kathy Patterson may be able to answer that and other questions about the law and how the DC Board of Elections administered this year’s primary and general elections. Her office is scheduled to undertake several assessments. She has contracted with the research firm Fors Marsh Group to help her dig deep into the data and interview candidates, voters and others. They hope to make recommendations early next year. 

“We’re just getting started on our work, given that everyone concerned is still wrapping up their work on the election. But we look forward to digging in more deeply in the next several weeks and throughout early 2021,” Doug Chapin, Fors Marsh’s director of policy analysis who will lead the assessment, told me via email correspondence over the weekend. 

Chapin is no election slouch. Prior to joining the company, he was director of election initiatives at Pew Center and founder of electionline.org.

During an interview with me last week, Patterson said language in the Fair Elections Act mandates a detailed financial audit — “how money was collected; how it was disbursed; financial recordkeeping; and overall compliance.” After a “long conversation” with Ward 6 Council member Charles Allen, who has oversight of elections and the Fair Elections law, she said the decision also was made to examine whether implementation of the law expanded voter participation and the candidates’ pool. 

Chapin said they will “examine how [the Fair Elections Program] compares to similar public campaign financing programs across the country, look at campaign finance data and talk to participants and observers about their impressions of how well the program achieved its desired goals.”

“While the impact of the coronavirus was likely not as drastic, we will also examine the extent to which FEP was affected by circumstances surrounding COVID-19,” he added.

The pandemic and poor management made a mess of the three elections this year, though things weren’t as bad in November as they had been in June. Given that reality, Patterson said she decided “Let’s look at the whole shebang.”

Her office will “evaluate the overall administration of the 2020 District of Columbia elections,” including identifying obstacles to voting that residents faced citywide and by ward; determining how voting this year compared to previous elections; and comparing DC’s performance to that of other states and to overall best practices.

That’s a good start. However, Patterson and Chapin should go two steps further, widening their lens to examine the role played by OCF as Fair Elections administrator and consider whether the District should establish a Secretary of State with oversight of the elections process.

By law, the OCF is technically the regulatory and enforcement agency for elections, similar to the Federal Elections Commission. How can it simultaneously operate a program and ensure the enforcement of that program? That seems like a conflict. The simple truth is it cannot faithfully perform both functions.

Equally troublesome, the agency was required by the law to hold a political forum. In doing so, the event organizers seemed to give premier billing to candidates in the Fair Elections Program. That suggested preference and bias; the danger of this is just one reason a government agency should not be engaged in organizing such activities.

These issues with OCF — as well as the dismal performance by the BOE — could be resolved by shifting responsibilities to a DC Secretary of State. The city already has an Office of the Secretary. However, the job is mostly aligned with record-keeping, ceremonial functions and other duties as assigned by the mayor. The post could be elevated to an elected position while assigning it the duty of chief election official as in Georgia, Pennsylvania and many other states. 

District officials and residents want to become the country’s 51st state. They may want to start quacking like one.

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jonetta rose barras is an author and freelance journalist, covering national and local issues including politics, childhood trauma, public education, economic development and urban public policies. She can be reached at thebarrasreport@gmail.com.