Whew. A lot has transpired since my last piece on the Citizens’ Election Fund kerfuffle. I won’t be covering all of it in this piece, because it would fill a book at this point, and y’all know how to use Google. But I did want to follow up on some of the details other folks may have missed.
This week, the County Council held a public hearing on CB-6, the bill intended to revise the CEF statute and eliminate the verbiage stating that elections will be determined to be contested (or not) on the first Tuesday in August preceding the election. Jon Weinstein, who was a member of the Council who passed CB-30 in 2017 to create the CEF statute, testified at the hearing. But he wasn’t entirely correct when he said that “the August date in the enacted law is only related to the general election and was added as an amendment.”
The August clause was in the original bill when it was introduced. Weinstein’s Amendment 7 further clarified it by adding the phrase “preceding the election” to the clause. Having reviewed the archived videos of CB30-2017 discussions, I could not find where anyone on the Council brought up or questioned the August clause or had any discussion about the line in Amendment 7 that modified it. None. And after CB30-2017 passed, the Baltimore Sun reported that “Weinstein said he was happy with the final bill, following a few amendments to clarify the funding process.”
Once the CEF statute was in place, the CEF commission developed informational materials, but interestingly, that August clause never made it into any of those materials despite being in the statute. Section XXXIX on contested elections makes no mention of it. Nor is it in the FAQ.
Given these facts, the best explanation I can come up with is that this was simply an oversight that nobody caught until October 2021, when the CEF commission notified the Council of the problem. And to be clear once again, it does need to be corrected. The only argument is how to fix it ethically under the circumstances. And that is the entire issue here, as I wrote last week.
I’m not excited about how District 4 Councilmember Deb Jung has handled this issue. When CEF commissioner Sue Geckle notified the Council about this issue on October 19, 2021, Ms. Jung responded on October 30 and said “Thank you for discovering the error in the legislation that would prevent candidates from accessing CEF funds after having declared that they will be utilizing the CEF.” She goes on to say, “would you like me to file the legislation to fix this issue? Would that be considered a conflict of interest since I have declared myself as a CEF candidate?” And yet, she submitted a request for matching funds anyway, and when Director of Finance Rafiu Ighile denied her request, she blamed the Calvin Ball administration for Mr. Ighile’s “interpretation that there is a technical issue in the CEF legislation.” Worse still, a representative of Ms. Jung’s campaign sent a letter accusing Mr. Ighile of “taking a technicality and turning it into a partisan sword” and demanding an immediate reversal or else they “must act accordingly.”
What is this, Game of Thrones?
It’s worth noting that throughout the discussion of CB30 in 2017, a recurring theme was a desire to reduce the power of incumbency. The CEF was intended to bring in more and diverse challengers, to avoid incumbents having a leg up, and to keep corporate money out of campaigns. I can’t help contrasting that with Ms. Jung’s hell-raising as an incumbent who testified in favor of the CEF in 2017, then took thousands of dollars from developer/real estate entities, businesses, and PACs in her successful 2018 County Council campaign, and who now is in a position to vote on changes to the CEF that would benefit her campaign. That doesn’t sit right with me.
District 3 Councilmember Christiana Rigby stated at this week’s hearing that she was requesting advice from the ethics commission on this issue, since she is a CEF candidate as well. I’ll be paying attention to what they have to say about this. I respect her approach to this issue.
The 2022 election season is off to a hell of a start, y’all! Buckle up!