Whew, we are glad the election is over! Whether your candidates won or lost, we hope you are celebrating in style. Like this...
Or like this...
Either way, we hope you've had a great time learning about local election fundraising and campaign finance with us over the past few months. We certainly have. If we left anything unanswered, let us know in the comments section as always.
As we move into the next election season, we encourage you to keep in mind the local races. We've definitely learned to keep searching for answers to questions about money in local politics; what we found throughout this project was certainly eye-opening.
Earlier this week, Tim introduced us to the MEC's incredible tutorial, Follow the Money, explaining how to keep tabs on who's spending what money where. Tim took a look at the donations of a large corporation to show how you can see which candidates they support.
Tonight I'm taking a look at the other side of the coin - how candidates spend the donations made to their campaign. I talked a little last week about my own experience with this in anecdotal format, so this week I'm applying my newly acquired sleuthing skills to Adair County's Republican candidate for Sheriff, Robert Hardwick.
Following along with the MEC tutorial, I found Hardwick's "8 days prior to election" financial statement.
The first thing I noticed was the sheer amount of money Hardwick has spent on this election. He's brought in more than$60,000 and has spent more than $50,000.
Curious about where all this money has come from, I checked out the donor list. It looks like Hardwick is financing the majority of his campaign himself. On the "30 days after primary" report, he listed himself three times on the donation list. His wife was listed as well, with a donation of just more than $9.000. The total for these donations was well more than $40,000.
It's kind of comforting to know that Hardwick isn't receiving any big donations from corporations or other heavy hitters in Missouri.
I was also curious about where Hardwick is spending his money. As I've discussed in previous posts, the majority of a campaign's dollars go to printed materials. In addition to the traditional signs purchase, Hardwick spent about $3,000 on a mailer before his 8-day report. One of his more interesting expenditures was on Facebook ads. Hardwick has spent almost $700 on Facebook ads throughout the campaign.
So why is this important? Well, while Hardwick may not be getting the big bucks from Cerner, other candidates are. Taking a critical look at where candidates' money is coming from allows us as voters to really evaluate whose interests candidates are really representing. All that's left is sewing patches onto their suits like NASCAR drivers do for their sponsors...
Do you ever wish you knew where candidates were receiving donations? Do ever wish you knew which corporations were donating to local candidates? If so, you're in luck.
The tutorial explains how to use the MEC.gov databases to see:
Candidates, for a specific election, registered with the Commission and compare the money reported received and spent between the candidates
Candidates’ financial information
Contributions made by a specific contributor and money paid to individuals/companies
Money > $5,000 received and reported, within 48 hours, by candidates
Money reported spent on behalf of candidates, by other committees
For instance, if I wanted to see contributions by a specific company, I search by contributor (in this case, I choose Cerner, an international healthcare company based in Kansas City). I can choose the year from which I want to view data and then type in "Cerner" as the Business/Org. Name.
My results list every contribution made by Cerner Corperation during my selected year. By far, the largest donation made during 2012 was a monetary contribution of $25,000 to support incumbent Governor Jay Nixon. This donation is entirely legal, of course; as I mentioned in an earlier post, Missouri has no legal limits on contributions to candidates for state and local office.
While not illegal, large corporate donations to candidates or parties represent vested interests on the part of corporations and are an easy way to tell who stands to gain from the outcome of an election.
Tools like the MEC database are a great way for voters to stay informed about how candidates raise support for their campaign and also provide an insight into the type of candidate each donor believes will best protect their interests. Follow the money!
Some of the toughest decisions candidates have to make concern where to spend the money they raise. I've done a lot of work recently for Chris Hershey's campaign for Public Administrator in Platte County, and how to spend campaign funds is one of the most stressful decisions he's had to make.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm dating Chris. That means I get to be a part of every conversation about the campaign. One of the decisions he labored over the most was about how to reach the most amount of people with printed material.
Printing flyers is really expensive. Placing ads in newspapers is even more expensive. Putting out a mailer is by far the most expensive.
Chris has been going door to door for weeks now, passing out his printed "handbill" with information about him as a candidate to each house. Purchasing the flyers was a huge expense for the small campaign - a few hundred dollars.
Looking at the money he had left in his campaign fund after purchasing the flyers, Chris had to decide between placing newspaper ads and doing a mailing.
First of all, mailings are extremely expensive. A good mailing costs anywhere between $5,000 and $10,000. This includes printing the materials, paying a company to put a mailing list together, and the actual mailing of the materials.
Chris certainly didn't have a big enough war chest to do all of that, so he looked at doing an extremely targeted mailing for just a few key areas of the county.
He then looked at placing ads in all of the local newspapers. There are a handful in Platte County; The Citizen, The Landmark, The Weston Chronicle, The Independent Platte and The Kansas City Star all serve the area.
The Flyer
Chris looked at his demographic. Which towns read the newspapers? Which towns would he have a harder time going door to door in because of the sheer number of people?
He determined that a newspaper ad would best fit in the northern part of the county, which reads the Citizen, Landmark and Chronicle. He thought a mailing would do best in the southern part of the county where he wouldn't be able to get to every house with his flyer.
Alas, one of the downfalls of running a very small local campaign is that there's just never enough money. Chris eventually had to make the call that advertising in the newspapers the week before the election was really all the campaign could handle.
I share this story because I think it illustrates a phenomenon that we don't hear a lot about in the media's coverage of elections. Local candidates often don't have the large donors like Presidential candidates do, which means they end up choosing the least expensive option the majority of the time. While Senate candidates get to run new television ads every week, local candidates are stuck running one ad in the local newspaper.
What's impressive about this story is that the lack of funds really forces local candidates to use the "free" means of campaigning. Chris has knocked on doors every night for weeks upon weeks to try and make up the slack from not being able to do a mailing.
It won't be dollars that win this election, it'll be blood, sweat and tears.
Mr. Sinquefield, as noted in the previous post, is the largest political donor in the state, with total donations topping $20 million, according to the New York Times. Personally, Mr. Sinquefield has supplied 40% of the funds raised by Republican Shane Schoeller.
According to spokesperson Laura Slay, Mr. Sinquefield contributes to "political candidates who share his commitment to
education and tax policies that will improve educational and employment
opportunities for every Missourian."
In particular, Mr. Sinquefield's central "commitments" are free-market policies, local control, and tax and education reform.
The central question concerning campaign donations, and the reason characters like Mr. Sinquefield are brought to the national spotlight, is a dispute about the fundamental realities of democracy. Can a democracy serve its citizens properly when one man can donate almost half of the funds gathered by a candidate for state office? Can that candidate truly serve the interest of the public at large after his campaign has been so selectively funded?
This is the question Missouri voters need to answer themselves. Should a retired, wealthy investor, with distinct beliefs as to the future of our state, have this level of influence on our political process? Regardless of your perspective on Mr. Sinquefied's ideas, should someone of his stature be able to use his own voice to this extent?
Missouri is one of only four states in the nation to not have any limit on campaign contributions. The other three are Oregon, Utah, and Virginia.
The lack of contribution limits means that any one donor can donate an unlimited amount to any campaign, initiative, or PAC.
Earlier this year, Senator Chuck Purgason, R-Caulfield, testified before the Senate Rules, Joint Rules, Resolutions and Ethics Committee in favor of contribution limits. He believes that unlimited donations have allowed special interests to control politics in Missouri. While others share Purgason's sentiments, it is unlikely a policy change will be made any time soon.
So what does this mean for Missourians?
I'm not a sports person, but the best way I can think of to explain this situation is with a baseball/football metaphor.
In football, teams have hard salary caps and salary floors. (Or at least that's what the Wikipedia tells me...). This means that even the most well-payed players aren't making a substantially larger salary than other players.
Baseball teams don't have a salary cap, and the MLB instead just charges teams a "luxury tax" for going over a certain salary level. Over the last decade, teams with the highest salaries consistently make the playoffs more often than teams with lower salaries.
If you want to learn more about this, check out the video below.
Let's compare this to Missouri politics.
The majority of the nation is operating under the NFL model where some candidates get more money from individual donors than others. Missouri is using the MLB model where some candidates get substantially more funding that their opponents.
In politics, campaign contributions are everything. So when one candidate gets hundreds of thousands of dollars from one of their "friends," their opponent can't even begin to compete.
It also means that a select few people in Missouri basically get to make election decisions just by placing a huge chunk of money in one place.
David Humphreys, president and CEO of TAMKO Building Products, Inc, $2,396,325
William Danforth, chancellor emeritus, Washington University, $1,084,483
James & Virginia Stowers, founder of American Century Investments, $1,041,623
John McDonnell, former chairman and CEO of McDonnell Douglas, $662,433
Ethelmae Humphreys, TAMKO's chairman of the board, $659,725
Jerry Hall, executive vice president of Jack Henry and Associates, $558,650
Sam Fox, founder of the Harbour Group, $554,687
James McDonnell III, retired, $483,250
Stanley Herzog, Herzog Cos. Inc., $453,775
Because these ten people have such an impact on Missouri elections, there are some concerns about the state's corruption risks, presented by the State Integrity Investigation.
Below is Missouri's report card. As you can see, political financing received an "F" due to the lack of contribution limits.
Do you think Missouri should have contribution limits? Let us know in the comments section below.
In tonight's debate, Governor Romney and President Obama were both asked about their plans to change the prevailing trend of higher wages for men over women in comparative jobs.
The numbers are significant; median weekly earnings for women are 81.2% those of men, surveying workers who work more than 35 hours per week. If the national condition is a significant demand on the next president's attention, the prevailing in Missouri is even more striking.
According to the Bureau of Labor statistics, Missouri women's wages reached a high in 1998 when their median pay reached 80.8%, but wages have quickly dropped, staying below 80% of men's pay since 1998. Currently, women's median weekly wages are 75.2% that of men. Higher income inequality may consistently be found in more rural and agrarian areas.
Given access to higher education this graph from the Missouri Women's Report (PDF) demonstrates that more equal wages are found in more metropolitan areas, highlighting clusters around cities like Kansas City, Saint Joseph, Columbia, and Saint Louis.
