campaign spending
Alderman Dan Coleman plans to introduce a resolution against corporate personhood to the Carrboro Board of Aldermen. In an e-mail to his colleagues on the board, Coleman asked that the draft resolution be added to the board's January 17 agenda. The resolution responds to the 2010 US Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v Federal Election Commission, which essentially cleared the way for unlimited election spending by corporations and other groups.
I was surprised to read on the OrangeChat blog this week that Democrat Earl McKee, running for an open County Commissioner seat in District 2 (northern and western Orange) has raised and spent well over $10,000. He already won the primary in May, in which he narrowly beat Renee Price, and promises to be the kind of (relatively) conservative voice that the not-so-new-anymore county commission districts were designed to elicit.
McKee is running against a Republican who has raised less than $3,000, most of which is a loan to his campaign. Oh, and did I mention he's a Republican? He is not going to win a county-wide seat around these parts. Like that fact or or not, it hasn't happened in decades, and even if Karl Rove's PAC starts buying ads on WCHL, it's not going to start now. (I'm not saying never, though.)
For a few weeks now, I have been compiling as much campaign finance information as was available to me.
Well, I finally finished. I have separated the information into three spreadsheets that I am sharing with the public: one containing candidate information, the other containing donor information, and the last containing itemized transactions from the donors to the candidates.
As I wrote before, it's difficult to find information on local elections. There is simply not a lot of money in play and the data is hard to get your hands on.
Well, if anyone was wondering why there is a noticeable void of good reporting on campaign finances in local elections… I have the answer.
The answer is pretty simple, but horribly boring.
The answer is a lack of uniformity in campaign finance report rules, a lack of money to throw around and a lack of technological advancement in local governments. More notably, the office-holder hopefuls who are filling out these forms (or are having their buddy/treasurer fill them out) are also fairly technologically challenged.
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