Candidates for Montgomery County Council and County Executive could get public matching funds for their campaigns, if a measure being pushed by the county’s delegation in Annapolis is approved by rest of the state Legislature.
Supporters say the bill is necessary after the 2006 election, in which former Councilman Steve Silverman spent more than $2 million in his losing bid to be county executive while winner Ike Leggett spent more than a half-million dollars. Some County council candidates spent more than $100,000 in their races.
“It’s a way to level the playing field,” Council Vice President Phil Andrews said. “It would provide incentives for candidates to seek small individual contributions rather than a few large contributions from wealthy people or interest groups with deep pockets. It would open the system to more candidates.”
The measure would only apply to Montgomery County, and would make it the first in Maryland to have the ability to provide public funds for local campaigns.
“The ideal situation would be to have statewide campaign finance reform, but it just hasn’t happened yet,” said Del. Susan Lee, who is sponsoring the measure. “Our county just can’t wait though for the rest of the state. Montgomery has always served as a visionary leader and model – the county led on a smoking ban and a living-wage law that laid the foundation for the state to follow those ideas.”
Del. Anne Kaiser, chairwoman of Montgomery’s County Affairs Committee, said she opposed the bill because it only applied to Montgomery.
“I just don’t want us legislating on a county-by-county basis, even if for something that is only relevant to a county position,” Kaiser said.
Bill advocates including, Leggett, the League of Women Voters, Maryland National Organization for Women and the Montgomery County Civic Federation say the measure is especially necessary in Montgomery because it’s population is rapidly approaching 1 million residents and the costs of ad efforts to reach that number of people is exploding.
The county’s entire House delegation will vote on the bill next week.
