Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Public funding worked as designed in its newest venue, advocates say

Public funding worked as designed in its newest venue, advocates say
Malte Mueller / Getty Images

Berkeley, the renowned progressive university town on San Francisco Bay, is the most recent place in the country to subsidize local elections. And the system worked as designed in its debut a year ago, cutting down the influence of big money and boosting competitiveness in the City Council elections.

That's the conclusion reached by MapLight, a nonprofit organization that follows the influence of money in politics, in a report this week.

While the public financing program for presidential campaigns has gone unused for almost a decade, because candidates haven't been willing to make the tradeoffs required, the concept is gaining steady acceptance elsewhere.


Berkeley, a city of 122,000, is among 20 municipalities (five others in California) and 19 states that spend taxpayer dollars on campaigns for local office in the forms of grants or matching funds to candidates, or tax breaks or vouchers for donors. Portland, Ore., and Washington, D.C., will begin public funding of local races next year.

Fourteen people ran for the Berkeley council in 2018, the highest number since the start of the decade, and 10 of them agreed to adhere to contribution limits from others in return for public matching funds. In an election without any primaries but with ranked-choice voting, the winners of all four seats came from that group.

Only candidates who accept donations of $50 or less qualify for a 6-to-1 match from public coffers, up to $40,000. Four candidates raised enough small-dollar donations to get the maximum, and three of them won. The fourth winner who took part in the program was a senior on the flagship University of California campus.

In the end, the candidates who took public money collected a combined $424,000 from public and private sources, while those who didn't had a combined fundraising haul of $52,000. With the need for private funding eased for those in the program, Maplight concluded, candidates had more time to focus on meeting voters and talking about local issues.

Outside influences were also deterred by the public financing system. In both the 2014 and 2016 elections, businesses and political committees gave about $10,000 combined to council candidates. This fell to just $4,500 last year, with most going to one of the non-participating (and losing) candidates. In addition, last year's election saw fewer donations from outside of Berkeley and out of state.

Read More

Once Again, Politicians Are Choosing Their Voters. It’s Time for Voters To Choose Back.
A pile of political buttons sitting on top of a table

Once Again, Politicians Are Choosing Their Voters. It’s Time for Voters To Choose Back.

Once again, politicians are trying to choose their voters to guarantee their own victories before the first ballot is cast.

In the latest round of redistricting wars, Texas Republicans are attempting a rare mid-decade redistricting to boost their advantage ahead of the 2026 midterms, and Democratic governors in California and New York are signaling they’re ready to “fight fire with fire” with their own partisan gerrymanders.

Keep ReadingShow less
Stolen Land, Stolen Votes: Native Americans Defending the VRA Protects Us All – and We Should Support Them

Wilson Deschine sits at the "be my voice" voter registration stand at the Navajo Nation annual rodeo, in Window Rock.

Getty Images, David Howells

Stolen Land, Stolen Votes: Native Americans Defending the VRA Protects Us All – and We Should Support Them

On July 24, the Supreme Court temporarily blocked a Circuit Court order in a far-reaching case that could affect the voting rights of all Americans. Native American tribes and individuals filed the case as part of their centuries-old fight for rights in their own land.

The underlying subject of the case confronts racial gerrymandering against America’s first inhabitants, where North Dakota’s 2021 redistricting reduced Native Americans’ chances of electing up to three state representatives to just one. The specific issue that the Supreme Court may consider, if it accepts hearing the case, is whether individuals and associations can seek justice under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). That is because the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, contradicting other courts, said that individuals do not have standing to bring Section 2 cases.

Keep ReadingShow less
Trojan Horse: How CA Democrats Might Use Voter ID To Turn Back the Clock

Voter IDs are a requirement in almost every democracy in the world. But legitimate concerns over voter suppression efforts in the American south led to a different ethic inside Democratic Party circles.

Image generated by IVN staff.

Trojan Horse: How CA Democrats Might Use Voter ID To Turn Back the Clock

Voter IDs are a requirement in almost every democracy in the world from Europe to Mexico.

But legitimate concerns over voter suppression efforts in the American south led to a different ethic inside Democratic Party circles. Over time, Voter ID plans have been presumptively conflated with claims of “voter suppression” without much analysis of the actual impact of proposals.

Keep ReadingShow less
Person voting

New York City’s election has gotten a lot of attention over the last few weeks, and ranked choice voting is a big part of the reason why.

Hill Street Studios/Getty Images

New York City’s Ranked Choice Voting: Democracy That’s Accountable to Voters

New York City’s election has gotten a lot of attention over the last few weeks, and ranked choice voting is a big part of the reason why.

Heads turned when 33-year-old state legislator Zohran Mamdani knocked off Andrew Cuomo, a former governor from one of the Democratic Party’s most prominent families. The earliest polls for the mayoral primary this winter found Mamdani struggling to reach even 1 percent.

Keep ReadingShow less