Montgomery County Council members meet in their Rockville Office on Tuesday, Sept. 30th
Student representatives from this university traveled to Rockville on Tuesday to support a Montgomery County bill that would change the way local election campaigns are financed and take political power away from large corporations.
Representatives from MaryPIRG and the Student Government Association, wearing “Fair Elections Maryland” stickers, sat in on the county council meeting to show their support for campaign finance reform.
“Corporation finance of elections is a huge problem,” said Kristin Jackson, MaryPIRG campus organizer. “It distorts our democracy and makes the vote of regular people less valuable.”
The bill, which passed unanimously after hours of deliberation, creates a public campaign finance system that will incentivize candidates to accept only small individual contributions, which will be matched with public funds.
The state General Assembly passed a law in 2013 allowing counties to create public campaign financing systems for county executive and county council seats, but Montgomery County is the first to do so. Montgomery County is the largest county in the state by population, with more than one million people, and it borders several counties, including Prince George’s, and Washington.
MaryPIRG is the campus chapter of the nationwide Public Interest Research Group, which has a stated goal of “standing up to powerful interests.” The director of the statewide Maryland PIRG, Emily Scarr, said campaign finance reform has been one of the group’s main initiatives.
“In the face of ever-increasing election spending by mega-donors and corporations, the Montgomery County Council took a big step today by tilting the balance of power back to ordinary citizens,” Scarr said. “More of our counties should quickly follow suit.”
Jackson said MaryPIRG’s long-term goal is a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, which paved the way for the recent surge of campaign funding from corporations and political action committees. In the meantime, she said, local bills such as the one Montgomery County passed Tuesday will move the country toward reversing Citizens United.
The bill is intended to encourage middle-class citizens without significant financial backing to run for office by leveling the playing field, said SGA Government Affairs Director Luke Pinton. To apply for public financing, candidates must prove their legitimacy by reaching a baseline funding level: $20,000 for a council member or $40,000 for a county executive. Once they are approved for public funding, donations of less than $150 are matched with public funds at rates of up to 600 percent.
“Sometimes the little guy, maybe a graduate of UMD or anyone else who wants to get involved in politics, sometimes cannot because the opponent they’re running against is supported by PACs or corporations,” Pinton said. “Everyone can vote, so everyone should be able to run for office. Everyone should have the resources to be able to run for office.”
Pinton said SGA plans to lobby for similar efforts in Prince George’s County, but has not yet passed a resolution to voice its support.
“As a UMD student who was born and raised in Montgomery County, the bill gives me newfound faith in politics,” said Shiran Zecharya, visibility coordinator for U.S. PIRG’s New Voters Project. “It allows people of all socioeconomic backgrounds, including broke college students like me, to have more of an equal say in the outcome of elections.”
