Candidates qualify for funds in voter-owned elections program

Chapel Hill Town Council candidates Donna Bell and Jason Baker will receive public funding for their 2011 campaigns.

Both raised more than the minimum 83 donations — limited to $20 at most — and $838 in contributions to qualify for up to $3,351 in public funds through Chapel Hill’s voter-owned elections program.

Town Council candidate Carl Schuler is also participating, but didn’t qualify for public funds by Friday’s deadline.

The pilot program is unique to Chapel Hill and is in its second — and possibly last — election cycle this season.

The program aims to limit donor influence on candidates and make elections more accessible to lower-income, less well-connected candidates. It was first used in 2009, when mayoral candidate Mark Kleinschmidt and town council candidate Penny Rich qualified for public funds.

Kleinschmidt, who used the funds last election and is now Chapel Hill mayor, limited contributions again this election. But he said he has a low-spending campaign, and didn’t plan to use public funds even if he qualified.

“I didn’t make much of an effort to do fundraising,” he said, explaining that he only raised $300 this campaign.

Bell raised the most money out of the voter-owned candidates, with 98 contributions totaling more than $1,500.

Bell, an incumbent, was appointed to the council in 2009 and is running for the first time.

According to a press release by Donna Bell for Chapel Hill Town Council, Bell realized she has an advantage as an incumbent but felt pressure to make her campaign known to Chapel Hill.

“I’m very excited about it,” said Baker, who raised more than $1,400 from 95 donations. He said to meet the required donations he met people he might not have otherwise, which helped him to understand the town’s needs.

“Don’t let anyone ever say that it’s too easy to get the funds,” he said. “But I think it’s good work.”

Schuler, the other town council candidate participating, said he did not qualify for public funds because he received three donations and just more than $19.

“It just needed more donors,” Schuler said. He said he hoped to gather the minimum 83 donations necessary, but couldn’t in the downtrodden economy.

“I wish there was a much lower barrier to participate, but still with the fiscal reporting requirements that are in place,” he said.

Chapel Hill’s voter-owned elections program was created in 2008 and will be up for renewal in 2012. But with a Republican-controlled state legislature, many doubt it will see another election.

“My personal opinion is that it should continue, the practical view is that is may not,” Schuler said.

Kleinschmidt agreed that the program has a hard road ahead.
“I think it will be challenging,” he said, explaining that many in the N.C. General Assembly are hostile toward the program. “I don’t think it’s because the program didn’t work.”

The program has faced constitutionality questions since its start.

The N.C. State Board of Elections suspended the program’s emergency funds provision in September. The decision came after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in June that a similar matching funds plan in Arizona was unconstitutional because it imposed financial equality, infringing free-speech rights.

With Chapel Hill’s emergency funds program, if a non-participant outspent participating candidates by 140 percent, the outspent candidates received extra public grants.

But participants say they will push for the rest of the plan’s continuation.

“It’s a fantastic program. I plan on going personally to the General Assembly when the legislation comes up for renewal and share my story,” Baker said. He said he would like to see the program lower its donation requirements to make it more accessible.

Bell will also advocate on the program’s behalf, according to her committee’s press release, and Rich and Kleinschmidt said that they too will support it.

Contact the City Editor at city@dailytarheel.com.