The rules for reporting campaign donations for city races are as follows:
- During non-election years, no one can give over $100
- During an election year, no one can give over $500
- Anyone who gives over $100 in a year must be reported. This includes
their name, address,
and employer.
- No anonomous contributions over $20
- No bundling of contributions (this is strictly prohibited except for
persons on the campaign committee giving checks to the treasurer and someone
in a family giving a check from another family member)
- No money from corporations, including non-profits
Someone who signs up to be a treasurer puts themselves on the line. If they
violate these, they can be charged with a gross misdemeanor. And the
candidate can lose their office. . They will pull the election certificate
if violations are found. So this isn't something that folks sneak around
and play with
So all this smoke is about donations from folks who give less than $100 in a
year. Everyone else has to be reported. I wouldn't catagorize these folks
as the "wealthy." I wouldn't catagorize them as "elite power brokers".
Having been involved in two campaigns for local offices, I can say that
small donors are mostly neighborhood folks who know and believe in the
candidates. And given the campaign limits, it takes a whole bunch of people
like this to raise any money at all. But that is the democratic idea. That
a bunch of people come together behind a candidate and that is what these
limits do force.
And the last campaign I worked on, we raised a whopping $7,000 in one year.
Not exactly millions as were alleged in some of these posts. And if anyone
wants to see the exact amount, you can pull the campaign reports. It is all
there.
Carol Becker
Longfellow
PS The walls of City Hall are lined with marble, not money, as Wizard Marks
noted. I would just add that all of the members of the commission to build
City Hall were voted out for building such an extravgent building with
marble on the walls. Thank god for their forsight to give us such a
beautiful representation of their faith in this City, even though they paid
the price for it.
----- Original Message -----
From: Russell Wayne Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Mpls list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, February 06, 2001 7:11 PM
Subject: RE: [Mpls] Clean money
> 9 p.m. Wednesday night
>
> The list sees white pages of unspoken cyberspace words by Council Member
> McDonald and Mayor Sayles Belton on campaign finance reform. I guess when
> you are on the inside of city hall where the walls are safe and lined with
> money, it is easy just to ignore all of us little people and go about your
> daily task of raising money from the big people (whoever they are) and
keep
> it secret or worse take it to your committee and never get back to the
> challenge. Where is the leadership? The next time your voting, remember
who
> spoke up and got out on a limb for all of us. And, remember who was
> silent - the status quo who continues to spend big tax subsidies for
wealthy
> developers.
>
> By the way, I've just had two of my good friends on this block sell their
> houses and move out. They were the best two in my block club. One of
them
> who was a great city person and had urbanity in her bones, left because
she
> was tired of the non-responsiveness of our city government and the big tax
> subsidies downtown. She said, "The only people left in the city were
going
> to be the wealthy and those who couldn't afford to leave." We witness
> tonight that the two insider mayoral candidates continue to tow my
> neighbor's line. What a tragedy.
>
> Russell W. Peterson
> Ward 9
> Standish
>
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