A half-right council victory

For the first time in Mayor Rocky Anderson's tenure in office, the Salt Lake City Council has voted to override his veto. The council did so last week in order to pass a new campaign finance disclosure ordinance that limits individual contributions to a campaign and defines what needs to be disclosed.

The arguments may seem technical to casual observers, but they strike at the heart of what it means to live in a democracy that encourages participation. In this case, the council got it half right. Full disclosure is indeed important. Campaign contribution limits, however, do little but protect the powerful.

Disclosure became an issue in the last mayoral campaign when Anderson got the Yellow Cab Drivers Association to install window wraps on cabs supporting his re-election effort. He never claimed the wraps as a contribution, even though they clearly had value as rolling billboards that reached all parts of the city every day.

The ordinance attempts to define how such unusual in-kind contributions should be handled in the future. Naturally, a candidate shouldn't have to declare every little sign a business owner might decide to voluntarily put in a store window, but the cab wraps had real value and represented an interest that ought to have been disclosed — although that was not required under the ordinance that existed at the time.

The city isn't the first government to deal with the riddle of how to keep City Hall accessible while regulating what candidates ought to disclose. The overriding idea behind such ordinances is to protect and inform the public. Many public officials believe that the rising cost of winning an election keeps ordinary folks from seeking office and empowers special interests, and they also feel the public has a right to know which people and groups may be gaining influence by contributing to a candidate.

They also want to keep candidates from enriching themselves with campaign contributions. The ordinance also wisely prohibits candidates from using donations for personal use.

Contribution limits, however, are futile and easy to circumvent. Wealthy contributors can simply divide a large contribution into smaller segments and funnel them through various business interests or family members. In addition, contribution limits automatically provide an unfair advantage to incumbents.

People who currently occupy public office already enjoy name recognition and an ability to attract media attention. Challengers need money in order to buy the kind of exposure needed to counter this. Spending limits make it harder to raise money and attract attention.

The only real way to protect the public is through a full and detailed disclosure of all contributions, whether real or in-kind, and all spending. In that sense only, the council got it right.