Posted under Ethics
Public financing legislation supported by the unlikely coalition of Common Cause, Progressive Maryland and Senate President Mike Miller will likely fail. The Baltimore Sun has the details:
A proposal for public financing of General Assembly campaigns appears dead this year after a fiery debate in the Maryland Senate over the idea of using taxpayer dollars for political activities.
Senators made several changes to the bill, argued over its necessity and complained that the full implications were unclear before voting, 27-20, Wednesday to send the bill back to committee. The procedural move means that further work on the bill is unlikely this legislative session, which ends in less than three weeks.
“I think it’s done for the year,” Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller said after the vote. “The general sentiment was, we should be focusing on the budget, and this would be perceived as assisting ourselves in campaigning and electioneering as contrasted to working for the public good.”
In general, the failure underscores the difficulty of enacting campaign financing reform. Such reform must be approved by the very people who have found success under the current campaign financing system. These reforms, particularly public financing, may open up the system to more people and threaten their positions of power.
Specifically, the legislation failed after “the Senate passed an amendment that closed a loophole that would have allowed individuals to avoid campaign finance limits by giving through multiple limited-liability companies.” Apparently, some incumbent senators didn’t want to see it closed.
The good news is that this legislation advanced farther than it ever had in the past. Hopefully, Maryland will soon be ready pass genuine campaign finance reform.
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