Is a bad idea.
In fact, I personally think that $5,000 is too much. I don’t think ANY PAC donations should be allowed in city elections. This city is RAN and funded by people, not businesses and special interest groups (yeah, I know, funny huh?)
I understand the city clerk’s concern of matching our city ordinances with state law, but I also find that hypocritical considering many of our ordinances don’t match up with state law.
Believe it or not, I do agree with City Attorney Fiddle-Faddle that we don’t need any court challenges from PAC’s that want to donate (Citizen’s United Supreme Court decision).
What is the solution? Well, I often tell people when making a decision about who to vote for in a municipal election, follow the money. Check the financial reports, and see who is giving the candidates money. See who takes the PAC money, see who takes the developer money, see who butters their bread and who they will work for.
In some ways, the PAC money donations are very telling, but is anybody paying attention?
If the city does lift it, maybe they should come up with some sort of campaign tax to somewhat limit funds. The more you spend campaigning, the more money the city gets from you to pay for the Denny, Indoor pool, Sioux Area Metro and every other thing our mayor spent money on.
It’s obvious we (the people) have no voice in city government. There was a time when a politicians income was his salary without the left over million dollar PAC money. Honestly, we can no longer call this democracy when a few billionaires control everthing.