By Lea Kahn, Staff Writer
Six months after the Clean Elections Committee agreed to write a formal report on its findings, that report has yet to be prepared — and it shows no signs of being forthcoming anytime soon.
The Clean Elections Committee reached a deadlock on whether to advance a proposal to use public money to fund Township Council political campaigns in March. Half of the eight-member committee supported public funding and half objected.
Three of the eight members of the Clean Elections Committee appeared before Township Council in April to explain what had occurred. After listening to the three members, the council decided to ask for a detailed written report.
”We are still waiting for the report from both sides — pro and con — so that we could really see their thoughts,” Mayor Mark Holmes said Wednesday morning. “The intent was to collect information so Township Council could come to some resolution whether we do it or not.”
”It became very apparent from the oral report that we had something to think about,” Mayor Holmes said. “There isn’t a final resolution until we receive the final report. We will be following up by asking Municipal Manager Richard Krawczun to get in contact with the committee.”
Doris Weisberg, who co-chaired the Clean Elections Committee with Michael O’Neil, said the committee had agreed to a certain procedure to write the report, and subsequently changed the way it was to have been written.
”We reached an impasse on the method to write the report,” Ms. Weisberg said. “Then summer came and we just scattered for those few months. It is so late, we never would have had time to write a report for Township Council to digest in time for a November ballot question.”
Mr. O’Neil could not be reached for comment.
The Clean Elections Committee voted 4-4 at its March 26 meeting on a recommendation to use taxpayers’ dollars to pay for Township Council candidates’ political campaigns. The committee originally consisted of nine members, but one member resigned and a replacement was never appointed by Township Council.
The committee was created by Township Council in 2007 to study whether the Township Council candidates’ campaign expenses should be picked up by the taxpayers instead of relying on privately raised campaign contributions.
If the Clean Elections Committee had recommended creating a “clean elections” ordinance, Township Council would have put a referendum question on the November general election ballot. Voters would have had the final say-so on whether they want public money to be used for that purpose.
The proposal to use taxpayer dollars to fund Township Council candidates’ political campaigns was suggested as the next step in campaign finance reform in Lawrence.
Since 2004, Township Council has adopted two ordinances aimed at reining in the practice of “pay-to-play,” in which professionals contribute money to a candidate’s campaign in return for no-bid public contracts.
State law allows Township Council to award contracts to professionals such as architects, attorneys, engineers and planners without first seeking competitive bids. The pay-to-play ordinances limit the amount of money a professional can donate to a candidate’s campaign and still be in the running for a no-bid contract.
Proponents of publicly funded municipal political campaigns also have said that eliminating the need for candidates to rely on private campaign contributions also would have the effect of equalizing campaign spending.
