As Columbus struggles with issues of public trust in government caused by the conduct or misconduct of elected officials,The Columbus Free Press takes a look at our local election system as evidenced by the 2015 election cycle. Recent years have provided some of the biggest public failures, including allegations and convictions of elected officials, including the school data scrubbing scandal, NCLB school tutoring fraud scandal, unvoted Nationwide Arena public purchase, undisclosed tax abatement and continuing financial losses, inflated priced home sales to foreign nationals, Redflex bribery scandal and the continuing F.B.I. public corruption investigations.
   All this begs the questions, 1) does our electoral system produce the best pool of candidates and elected officials possible?, and 2) is it appropriate for citizens to find and demand better ways to ensure honesty and competence in local government?  Communities across the country are wrestling with the same questions, and some are finding answers and working toward solutions.

The 2015 Election and Campaign Financing

The 2015 Columbus elections provided little in the way of surprise, other than the drama of actual competition for elected offices and the floating of differing ideas.  The biggest surprise was the strong showing of Franklin County Sheriff Zach Scott, in his upstart bid for the office of mayor against sitting council president Andrew Ginther, who had been the political and business community’s anointed successor of Mayor Coleman and who spent more than $2.7M of the $3.4M total 2015 spending by the two general election opponents (Scott spent nearly $707,000 in his losing bid).
   On the council side,  Republican Demetrious Stanley kept things interesting with a strong showing – since a Republican had not been elected to begin serving on council since 1995. Also Elizabeth Brown and Michael Stinziano bucked from recent tradition by actually running for open seats – not by running as an appointed incumbent as every current council member has done as well as their predecessors in an almost unbroken fashion for nearly 30 years. Both Brown and Stinziano did receive the Franklin County Democratic Party endorsement, however, along with the council incumbents.
    In the most expensive election in Columbus’s history, campaign finance reports filed with the Franklin County Board of Elections show that more than $1.1 million was raised and spent in 2015 by candidates for the five city council vacancies. The endorsed Democratic Party slate of Zach Klein, Elizabeth Brown, Michael Stinziano, Jaiza Page and Shannon Hardin raised just under $995,771.74, compared to the  challengers (Ibrahima Sow, Besmira Sharrah, Demetrious Stanley, Joe Motil, and John Rush) combined total of $126,402.16 – a nearly 8:1 funding advantage for those who won office.
   In the 2011 and 2013 elections, the council president provided more than 70 percent of the financing for the incumbent Democrats, through in-kind contributions (primarily the purchase of radio and television spots). In 2015, with the council president running for Mayor and spending over $2.7M for his own effort (and spending just $2472.13 in in-kind contributions to other candidates), there was no council president to provide the largess – council president Zach Klein picked up some of the slack,  sending more than $153,000 to his colleagues on council and presumably cementing his position as council president in 2016.

The overall funding advantage for the Democratic slate becomes even more clear when looking at individual reports of the three Republican candidates: John Rush, who raised nearly $14,000 (plus his $1,045 personal loan to his own campaign) for his General election bid, Joe Motil, who raised $2,840 (plus his $1,000 loan to his campaign) through the 5-day primary filing, Besa Sharrah who raised $2,330, and Ibrahima Sow, who raised just $1,323.

What Should Citizens Demand?

   Each of the candidates are accomplished people, and no slight is intended herein. But as citizens we need to ask the obvious, though -- beyond each of the candidate’s individual qualities and appeal -- what does it take financially to run for city council? To be a sitting State Representative and part of a political family (Mike Stinziano)?, the daughter of a U.S. Senator and former Ohio Democratic party and city employee (Elizabeth Brown)?, favorite staffers of the sitting Mayor (Shannon Hardin) and City Attorney (Jaiza Page)?, a homegrown OSU football superstar who had a community representation plan being called for by citizens and an on-going community and media presence (Demetrious Stanley)? 

Election Intimidation of Contributors by Politicians

   Stanley, who raised $99,875 – by far the most of any non-Democrat endorsed candidate, says it is “impossible for the average citizen” to raise enough money to run a competitive city election, citing the “intimidation factor” for businesses who fear retaliation if their names pop up as contributors on the “wrong” campaign finance report as being a barrier for his fund raising efforts, until he was FOP and Dispatch-endorsed. He says “a lot of these business people are sick of it, but won’t stand up and say anything about it because they think it would be ‘career suicide.’” Candidates in past elections have expressed the same “intimidation factor” and fear of losing business from the city to this reporter.
   If so, how can we call ours a true democracy, when only such a small segment of our community is a realistic candidate with the ability to finance a message across the city to the people s/he hopes to serve? What happened to ordinary people being able to run for office in our city – do candidates have to be “connected” or annointed?
   We urge Free Press readers to complete the following questionnaire and think about how to fix the current system.

Q1: Who writes the rules on how campaigns can be financed?

__ Incumbent Politicians

__ Challengers

__ Citizens

Q2: Who benefits most from election rules that limit competition?

__ Incumbent Politicians

__ Challengers

__ Citizens

Q3: Who benefits most from fair and competitive elections?

__ Incumbent Politicians

__ Challengers

__ Citizens

   The desire of politicians – who write the election rules to remain in power and to be untouchable by the people has helped spur creation of the Columbus Community Review Board (see article in this edition) – which has been launched to let residents vote for “governors” outside of the existing civic structure to represent them on issues. The initial governors were empaneled, and it will be interesting to see if this shadow governance structure presents a challenge to the city’s power elite.

Campaign Finance Reform

   Is this what we want for our local democracy? Fellow citizens who step out on the limb to become candidates who then go into debt to run in uphill races against well-funded political elites? A political machinery that seeks to suppress independent political views? Columbus has a lot of thinking to do. On the same November date of our financially unbalanced election, Seattle voters passed a national model for campaign financing, giving every voter publicly-funded “democracy vouchers” to give to the candidate of their choice. This novel approach encourages candidates to appeal to real voters, rather than corporate interests, to get funding for their campaigns.
   Columbus, though, appears content with the unbalanced status quo – rejecting two citizen proposed campaign finance reform proposals, and ignoring one recently submitted as citizen initiative that matches donations of small donors at a 5:1 ratio, to enhance the power of those small donor voices. It is unlikely to move forward, though, because in the aftermath of last years’ undemocratic Issue 7, council voted and passed a law that prohibits public funds from being used in campaigns, while giving itself the right to reject citizen initiatives that conflict with any city law. In this way, the council anointed itself from the threat of citizens developing a more equitable way to finance elections.
   With the unprecedented spate of scandals, It appears to this observer that local government has become increasingly arrogant in its ability to achieve its desired and pre-determined elections outcomes, out of touch with everyday residents, and is spinning wildly out of control to the detriment of citizens. As citizens responsible for the organization and conduct of our government, we must share in the blame and lead to the solutions.