Commentary in the San Antonio Report provides a space for our community to share perspectives and offer solutions to pressing local issues. The views expressed in this commentary belong solely to the author.
Every now and then, San Antonio politicians will pontificate about the need for local politics to open up to more campaign money. They will argue that the restriction in our city charter that individuals can only donate $500 and $1,000 to mayoral candidates per campaign cycle harms the chances of success for local candidates and therefore our local political development.
I disagree.
As a first-time candidate from a working-class background with no family political connections, I had to hold down a full-time job during my campaign to pay my bills. My campaign relied almost entirely on volunteers, friends and family, as well as a lot of my own sweat and tears. I am committed (and committed) to not taking a penny of corporate or real estate money from the Political Action Committee (PAC) because I believe local candidates should not have such influence in their decision-making. This meant that in order to afford to send out campaign flyers, buy signs and door hangers, maintain a website, and pay the people who worked on my campaign, I had to collect donations from ordinary residents – with a donation limit of $500 per person. So I did it. And I’ve focused on recruiting volunteers to knock on doors, make calls and reach out to every possible voter.
And guess what? A 24-year-old candidate and volunteers knocked on over 15,000 doors, raised over $50,000 and won a local election to represent the neighborhood where he grew up. Was it difficult? Absolutely. But this is the work candidates should do to represent their communities. Allowing candidates to get more money from those with significant resources or political connections will simply force candidates to spend more time talking to donors instead of voters, and may have their hands tied on important decisions once they’re elected.
Is campaigning expensive? Yes.
But in a city where nearly half of our residents struggle to afford housing and other everyday costs, raising individual campaign contribution limits in our local elections will only allow the wealthy and politically connected people to pour more money into campaigns, leaving our working families, renters and seniors on fixed incomes with less influence over who represents them at City Hall.
A regular voter’s $25 donation to a candidate they truly believe in loses value when the opposing candidate is collecting thousands of dollars a day from a handful of this city’s most influential local lobbyists. Candidates will spend more time competing with their opponents to attract top donors so they can send out more mailings, digital ads and polls instead of talking to voters about what matters to them.
A professional person who wants to run for City Council will likely have to turn to our city’s political consultants, lobbyists and regular campaign donors to compete with the mountain of campaign cash raised by their opponents. This is not how elections should work in a democratic, representative form of local government.
As the City Council reviews our local campaign finance laws, we should leave the donation limits there, limit unclear PAC spending, and consider a public campaign finance system that can support small dollar donors for their donations to local candidates, rather than increasing the political power of the wealthiest and most well-connected people in our city.
Money should not determine our elections. Our residents should.
https://sanantonioreport.org/residents-should-decide-elections-not-big-money-commentary/
