I have no idea. I usually try to avoid local politics because it looks stressful.
Yeah, that doesn't hold up. The question is what kind of candidate will have access to large amounts of money to pay out at all.
The practical problem with spending caps at the moment is that they only constrain candidates, so corporations and in some places unions form independent expenditure committees which are free to spend as much as they want, explicitly supporting or opposing some candidate, because free speech?
Cities can at least mandate IECs report their spending, and as a result some places have a tripwire that when IEC spending exceeds a certain threshold, and the city makes a declaration to that effect, the spending caps for candidates in that race are dispensed with for the rest of the election, to level the playing field a bit.
We've never managed to pass any local campaign financing on the basis of who would enforce it? The City Clerks' office handles elections, but they don't want to be the ones to enforce because it would put them in the position of hounding a new Mayor over campaign finance compliance issues while also trying to work with that person to run the city.
Community engagement is great until people show up demanding that schools teach kids that covid vaccines cause critical race theory.
Man, the endless monetization of every single aspect of existence is kind of exhausting. Or maybe every single aspect of existence is exhausting and the monetization is just a meter.
3: Oakland made a Public Ethics Commission with I think three staff members of its own.
Although it's probably easier in California that almost everyone spending over $2,000 in a year has to report finances to the state whether their city does anything or not, so there are standard forms and principles for a would-be regulating city to piggyback on.
We've never managed to pass any local campaign financing on the basis of who would enforce it?
Ours is reviewed by the Ethics Review Commission. Candidates have to report their contributions and spending.
However, apparently in Texas there is a law that you can't constrain self-donations. Or maybe that's the rule everywhere?
7: Yes, that's another of our exceptions. I believe it's also Supreme Court-based.
It the last election cycle, our state contribution limit was raised so that now someone can donate $10,000 before a candidate runs, $10,000 during the primary, and $10,000 for the general. $30K can go a long way to defend one of our 400 house districts.
I don't know how small donor networks can keep up with that.
In my experience, local progressive politicians are working up to their eventual careers in the casino business, so you don't really need to listen to their opinions about money.
The casino business gets its fingers everywhere. In NH, we have local casinos that give X amount of their receipts to a charitable cause, so different charities line up to support the casino for a week and get a cut of the take. If you want to support the library you can go gamble during "Friends of the Library" week.
9 Jesus. Ours was raised to 400 in 2021, from 160.
Also, fuck yeah something good for the lame duck omnibus: "A related piece of legislation, called the MAT Act, that would lower barriers to prescribing opioid use disorder medication like buprenorphine, is also in the final package."
People I know worked very hard to get that in there. Its going to make medication-assisted opioid treatment way more accessible, especially in rural places.
13: That's awesome.
10 and 11: 3xpandimh casinos got way higher priority than paid family leave. This is where I'm really torn about referenda. We got expanded casinos, because the casino owners can pay lobbyists and donate to campaigns. The issue benefits a small number of people A LOT.
Paid family and medical leave benefits almost everyone a little bit, so it does more at the societal level. But the diffuse body politic can't keep up with contacting their legislators all the time. They can, however, vote to establish a system modeled on unemployment insurance. This is where it seems like referenda have value. I think that would have died in some committee vote, and in MA committee votes are secret, so only professionals can keep up with that stuff.
Oh hey, looks like the Electoral Count Act reform is still in the omnibus! That will help at least some.
The traffic was only bad enough for me to have to sit through one green light. But a parade of dozens of cars with electric menorah on their roofs and a police escort took so long to pass that there was enough traffic for me to sit through seven green lights.
I see lots of people complaining the ominbus is too big and doing too much, as if its not the last chance to pass legislation for the next two years.
People are still complaining about the Seleucid Empire after 2,200 years.
Yeah. I'm not even Jewish but fuck them and that Haman.
There were a lot of real assholes going around back then.
I think I would prefer the Seleucids over some Kahanist-equivalents.
It's probably too close to the freeway for a nice place to build a house, but someone is selling a used bridge pier.
I'm having troubles today. That was me, putting this in the proper thread. Or at least a less improper one.