You, Too, Can Analyze Campaign Finance Reports

A commenter on a previous post suggested that "some ambitious blogger with an economics degree" take the time to review the campaign finance reports recently submitted by the mayoral candidates*.

(*This is not an exact quote...I didn't bother to look it up. Because I don't have to. Because this is a blog. Not NBC.)

I am happy to inform you that almost anyone, regardless of the level of economics accomplishment you've achieved, can successfully analyze a campaign finance report--and I'm here to tell you how.

You don't really need intelligence--what you really need is time. and a cynical attitude. Every person who donates to a campaign has a motive. The most romantic of the motives is altruism--some people donate to campaigns because they truly believe that candidate will be the best for the city. Some donate because they think they will indirectly benefit from the candidate, such as a builder donating to a pro-development candidate. And some people plan to benefit directly, in the form of a job with the incoming administration or some type of business steered their way. Sometimes it's hard to tell one type of donor from another, but here's what you can look for:

-amount of donation. the maximum donation to a mayoral candidate is $2500, and this is typically done by businesses hoping to recoup this cost and then some. If you've got a donor for more than $2500, you've got a violation. If you've got an odd business, you might have a candidate with interests different than those of the citizens of Annapolis.

-type of donors. Individual donors typically represent a grassroots campaign, and business donors typically represent a stakeholder campaign. This is highly generalized but can be a useful tool.

-location of donors. One can assume that the amount of donors from the city proper can be used as proxy for votes, whereas the amount of donors outside of the city proxies either the level of business ties or the amount of friends of that candidate.

-amount of money raised. People like to support a winner, and it can be argued that the amount of money raised by each candidate sets rough odds as to who is the favorite. The caveat is that the people who don't donate money may not vote for candidates proportionate to the amount of donations those candidates receive.

-ending cash on hand. Pretty logical: the more money a candidate has in the bank, the more propaganda they can promulgate between now and the election.

That's about it I think. I'm confident that anyone reading this could look at the campaign reports and come to the same conclusions I would. Hopefully you have more time to do it than me!

Campaign Finance Reports

HERE is the link to the city web page which lists all finance reports recently filed by the July 1 deadline. Any organization that raised or spent money to spend for political purposes was required to file. Here are the individual links:

Annapolis Democratic Central Committee

Annapolis Republican Central Committee

Citizens for Chuck Weikel (D)

Classie G. Hoyle (D, Ward 3)

David H. Cordle (R, Ward 5)

Debbie McKerrow (D)

Ellen Moyer (D)

Fox for Real Change (Chris Fox, running for mayor) (I)

Friends of Fox (Mike Fox, former alderman) (R)

Friends of Frank Bradley (R)

Friends of Fred Paone (R, Ward 2)

Friends of Scott Bowling (R)

Friends of Trudy McFall (D)

Friends of Zina Pierre (D)

Jennings for Annapolis (G)

Julie Stankivic (R)

Richard Israel (D)

Ross Arnett III (D)

Sheila M. Finlayson (D)

Shropshire Letter (D)

I don't quite have time to go through all of them, but the issues that I am aware of at this time are as follows:

-Zina Pierre is definitely running for mayor because she has accepted contributions that are above the level allowed for aldermanic campaigns. Zina herself did not sign her campaign report.

-Trudy McFall has like $39,000 in unallocated cash, which is a good start. Her campaign chairman, Dennis Conti, does not live in the city and therefore is prohibited by city code from being the chairman. I ran into this situation, and I had to label myself the 'senior advisor' to the campaign. Not a huge deal, but someone looking to get in a cheap shot could raise the issue in the future.

-Sam Shropshire is unbelievable. You'll notice that the link is to the "Shropshire Letter", rather than his campaign report. Apparently his house flooded, prohibiting access to the finance records. Even so, one would expect either (1) the treasurer to have the records, (2) the records to be in electronic form on Alderman Sam's computer, or (3) someone go to the bank and at least record the cash balance in the account so the appearance of at least trying to make the report would be made! This is not the first election shadiness from Alderman Sam. Although I was not paying attention when this happened, I think Alderman Sam actually changed his name to avoid particular election law. Weird.