Blog: What Do City Council Incumbents Do With All That Money They Raise?

Does it really take $100,000 or more to run for City Council in our 1.9 square City? And, more importantly, should it?

The biggest problem with the vast imbalance in funds raised, between the incumbents and non incumbents in the race for West Hollywood City Council, is that the incumbents have tens of thousands of dollars to say whatever they wish to the voters... true or not.

The huge sums raised by the incumbents from sources outside WeHo are spent to shape voters' opinions of the candidates, giving them a huge advantage in making their names well known to voters on Election Day. In the fairy tale told by the entrenched interests, any candidate who works hard and garners enough support in the community should be able to compete. But it’s not in the community where incumbents have garnered their support, it’s from outside interest groups.

It's also a fairy tale because anyone who gets involved in West Hollywood politics soon finds out the dirty little secret - that almost everyone who could possibly have any business in front of the City Council is too intimidated to give money to challengers against the desire of incumbents. And the residents, well, they just don't have the deep pockets to compete.

The more open secret that John D'Amico seems to want everyone to forget, now that he's made his own way onto the Council, is that his campaign had the direct and very influential help of John Duran and the contributions that come along with it. Between Duran's help and support from the animal rights lobby pushing for the fur ban, which he delivered, D'Amico didn't have the average challenger's disadvantage. Plus, the Council member he replaced was appointed, not elected, which he used to maximum effect.

Does The Money Buy Dishonesty?

It is bad enough on its own, that less well-funded challengers can't afford to similarly reach all the voters. But when the incumbents turn their vast resources "against" a non incumbent candidate with half-truths, innuendo and downright lies, it's obscene. With few resources, how can a challenger defend him or herself? The answer is... they can't, at least not on any comparable scale.

A mailer war is out of the question and the incumbents know it. So, all that outside developer money goes into mailers. We all know they own our mailboxes in the final days before an election. And, when a challenger becomes a threat despite the money disadvantage, as Steve Martin has apparently become, they double down and slime that candidate ruthlessly - truth be damned.

Steve Martin posted a video, Steve Martin Fights Back, on his website, facebook and YouTube to counter all the false charges, but he can't deliver it to every mailbox in WeHo. He's walked the neighborhoods relentlessly, but he can't speak to every voter in WeHo. How is he supposed to counter a slime campaign that reaches everyone who will be voting? The best he can hope for is that it will reach enough voters to make the difference. And, the only way that will happen is for engaged voters to watch it and pass it along to those not so informed. Will people do that? Will you do that? I don’t know.

Every challenger is dealing with the tremendous disadvantage of not having the money to reach voters, but when the incumbents put the energies of their highly paid, professional consultants (or lobbyists) and all that money into a negative campaign against any challenger who is getting traction, it turns everything we think of as democracy on its head. This is no way to run elections in this tiny City that we like to think of as unique, creative, progressive, diverse and, especially, governed by the us, the people.