My View: Approve anti-corruption amendment

Does our government have a corruption problem?

Opponents of the anti-corruption amendment to the city charter on the Nov. 4 ballot don’t think so. Tallahassee is not a corrupt city, the argument goes, so voting for the ethics and anti-corruption proposal is wrong and unnecessary.

This stance is willfully blind to an unpleasant but inescapable reality: Money has corrupted American politics on a systemic scale, and Tallahassee is no exception. We cannot allow our city to devolve into the pay-to-play, influence-peddling culture that has engulfed Washington, D.C. That’s why we’re putting our partisan differences aside and uniting behind the anti-corruption amendment — and why you should vote “yes.”

The amendment’s opponents cite the low number of city officials who have faced ethics complaints as proof that Tallahassee doesn’t have a corruption problem. But that’s exactly the problem: it’s currently perfectly legal to spend thousands of dollars to buy influence at City Hall.

Political campaigns cost money, and politicians know how to raise it. According to the Leon County Supervisor of Elections office, candidates for the City Commission have hauled in approximately $700,000 during this election cycle alone. While a significant amount of that money came from donors outside of the city, only about 1,500 individuals with Tallahassee addresses made contributions. That’s less than 1 percent of the total population of Tallahassee.

So, where is the money coming from? The largest donors to local campaigns have a significant financial stake in the decisions being made by the City Commission. Many are angling for, stand to benefit from or have already been awarded city contracts. This is a dynamic that is fundamentally corrupt, it must change, and it’s why the anti-corruption proposal would lower contribution limits from $1,000 to $250.

The trouble is that it will always cost significant amounts of money to seek public office. But most Americans don’t have spare money lying around to donate to political campaigns. That means politicians are forced to raise funds from a small fraction of the population, and are under enormous pressure to keep that small donor base happy — be it in the form of a government contract or a subsidy. It’s the root cause of the kind of wasteful spending and cronyism that’s despised by voters yet never seems to change.

That’s where the anti-corruption amendment comes in. By establishing a $25 rebate for contributions, it makes every Tallahassee resident a potential donor. That makes it possible for candidates to run viable campaigns by taking their appeals directly to everyday people instead of becoming financially dependent on big donors. It’s all about incentives: If you’re a politician, ignoring the will of the people to gain the approval of big donors stops being a winning strategy when every voter is a potential donor.

If by chance all of the 1,500 Tallahassee-area donors to city candidates this election year lived within the city limits and voluntarily requested a refund, that would have cost $37,500, an estimate much lower than the scare tactic numbers being pushed by city officials. It’s a small investment in a political system that has fewer conflicts of interest and elects leaders less likely to hand out millions more of our tax dollars to cronies who happen to be major campaign donors.

The amendment also addresses the current conflict of interest of having an ethics officer report to the city attorney and city auditor, two officials whose departments could be subject to ethics investigations. Voters have an opportunity to create an independent ethics board of seven citizen volunteers whom the ethics officer would report to instead of city staffers. That would ensure the ethics officer could operate independently throughout City Hall without fear of retribution and be truly accountable to the people.

We’ve seen what happens when the influence of money in politics goes unchecked. Just look at the sorry state of affairs in Washington, D.C. It’s why a diverse coalition of grassroots groups including Common Cause Florida, the Tea Party Network, the League of Women Voters, and the Florida Alliance of Retired Americans have lined up in support of the amendment, and why we encourage you to vote “yes.”

The anti-corruption amendment will help protect our government from cronyism and waste, and put power back where it belongs: in the hands of the people.

Peter Butzin is volunteer state chair of Common Cause Florida, Catherine Baer is co-chair of Citizens for Ethics Reform (http://citizensforethicsreform.org).