Endorsement: No on Proposition 4. California doesn’t need taxpayer-funded campaigns – Marin Independent Journal

Endorsement: No on Proposition 4. California doesn’t need taxpayer-funded campaigns  Marin Independent Journal

With 14 statewide ballot measures on the ballot, Proposition 4 is thankfully simple to understand. With 14 statewide ballot measures on the ballot, Proposition 4 is thankfully simple to understand. If approved, Prop. 4 will repeal California’s general ban on public funding of campaigns and allow most cities and the state to establish public-financing programs if they so choose. That ban was enacted by voters as part of Proposition 73 in 1988, which sought to constrain the use of tax dollars in elections. As proponents of Prop. 73, including the late Joel Fox, argued at the time in proposing the ban on public funding of campaigns: “Keeping government spending under control is hard enough.

Imagine how much harder it will be to keep politicians from spending more tax money on the most important thing in their lives — getting elected and reelected.” Such concerns are perhaps the chief reason to leave the ban in place. While Prop. 73’s ban applies to the state and general law cities, charter cities — those operating under their own local constitution, or charter — are allowed to authorize public financing of campaigns if they choose to. Out of the 126 charter cities in the state, only Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, and Long Beach have authorized such programs. However, Oakland’s “Democracy Dollars” program,