Diana Li Photo
Elicker’s results didn’t surprise board member McClain.
More than half of New Haven’s white voters considered public-financing important in the recent mayoral election. More than half of black and Latino voters didn’t.
Those results came from mayoral candidate Justin Elicker, who offered a debriefing at the most recent meeting of the Democracy Fund — the body that administers New Haven’s first-in-the-state mayoral public-financing law.
When he ran against Toni Harp for mayor and other candidates in 2013, Elicker chose to use the voluntary Democracy Fund, which offers matching public money for candidates who agree to cap individual donations to $370 (rather than $1,000) and to forswear contributions from political committees. Harp (the eventual winner) chose not to participate in the voluntary system. The Democracy Fund became its own election issue and sparked conversations about corruption, political favors, and clean government.
Two months after a contentious mayoral election, the Democracy Fund board finds itself still grappling with the same question it asked during the election cycle: what will make people care about the fund? Elicker attended this past Thursday’s monthly board meeting of the fund to weigh in.
After handing the fund a $1,235 check – the leftover money he had from his campaign that he raised on his own – Elicker discussed results of a phone poll his campaign conducted last July. He distributed results of one of his campaign question: “How important to you is it that the next mayor uses public financing in his campaign?”
The results of the poll showed that white voters seemed to care more about the use of the Democracy Fund than black and Latino voters.
Sixty-four percent of white voters who were polled said they thought it was “very important” or “somewhat important” that the next mayor use public financing. Only 46 percent of black respondents and 43 percent of Latino respondents said the same thing.
Only 17 percent of white people said they did not know enough about the issue to answer the question; 28 percent and 38 percent of black and Latino respondents answered the same, respectively.
Getting the Message Across
The Elicker campaign polled 450 voters by phone. Elicker (pictured at the Thursday board meeting) explained that those who have previously voted are more likely to vote in future elections, so the campaign used public data about who had voted in previous elections to guide its efforts. Beyond likelihood to vote in the election, the sample was random.
Democracy Fund Board member Gerry Martin pointed out that 55 percent of the respondents in total called the Democracy Fund very important or somewhat important. He termed those numbers “better than expected” and “a place to start from.” However, no one during the meeting explicitly addressed the racial divide.
“While it appears from this data that more white voters feel the Democracy Fund is important, I don’t know why that is. It might be a messaging thing; I’m not sure,” Elicker said. “We can talk a lot about how you interpret this data.”
Instead of interpreting the data, though, the board moved on to talk about other issues surrounding the Fund.
The racial divide also arose during November’s Democracy Fund board meeting, when fund Administrator Ken Krayeske (at left in photo) brought up a conversation he had had with Elicker and mentioned his poll. When Krayeske shared the finding that white voters found the Democracy Fund more important, board member Tyrone McClain, who is African-American, said that result was “not surprising” to him.
He mentioned in passing that the Democracy Fund message likely resounded with voters in Elicker’s ward, which covers East Rock as well as Cedar Hill and a slice of Fair Haven: “His message of public finance – you don’t need a lot of money to penetrate that neighborhood with that message; they get it automatically,” he said.
Part of the problem, McClain argued, was the fact that some people see the Democracy Fund as coming at the expense of other parts of the budget, such as social programs. Mayor Harp made that argument during the campaign. She said she agreed with the Democracy Fund as an idea, but claimed she declined to participate because of the city’s tight budget situation. Proponents of public-financing argue that it save taxpayers money by guarding against costly paybacks to campaign contributors.
Reached after the meeting, Elicker said any efforts to explain the poll’s racial finding would be “speculation.”
Learning from Elicker’s Experience
Elicker told board members that one of the biggest issues they face is public perception. A good portion of the city still doesn’t know what the Democracy Fund is. Others view it as providing candidates with an unfair advantage.
“There’s this myth that the Democracy Fund is there to enable people that couldn’t raise enough money to be a viable candidate to run,” Elicker said. “I think that reputation can discredit what the Fund is trying to do and discredit a participating candidate, because people say that candidate is only participating in the fund because they couldn’t raise money on their own.”
The board had a debate and discussion about the threshold: In order to qualify to receive public funds from the Democracy Fund, candidates must receive 200 donations. In response to the idea that the Democracy Fund had an image problem, the board discussed changing the qualification requirements.
Chairwoman Patricia Kane (pictured), however, argued that the mission of the Democracy Fund includes enabling more people to run for office, including those without access to money. She said a bigger field expands the discourse and issues of an election. She pointed to candidate Sundiata Keitazulu, who failed to qualify for the fund and dropped out of the election.
“Someone like Sundiata [Keitazulu] was the only one talking about bus routes and what it was like as a former inmate trying to get back into society and get a job,” Kane said.
Elicker used the fund for the Democratic Party mayoral primary. He lost in the primary and chose to run in the general election as an independent. Fund rules stipulated that he couldn’t continue to use public-financing. In order to keep with the spirit of the Fund, Elicker continued to abide by the rules (swearing off donations from PACs and contractors and limiting his contributions to $370). He pointed out Thursday night he pointed out that another candidate could use fund money in a primary and then violate all the principles of the fund if running again in the general election.
At the end, board members resolved to collect a list of issues and potential changes to discuss. This coming year is their chance to make changes to the fund before the next election cycle.
“[2013] was a huge year. We had an election cycle that was unprecedented, and we’ve been making notes at all of our meetings about the Fund, so there is a pretty heavy agenda of things we’d like to see changed,” Kane said. “There’s not much glory to serving on this board, but the work we do is important.”