By Adam Pagnucco.
Prior to the election, I reported that the Committee for Better Government, which was advocating for a charter amendment reducing county executive term limits from three to two, had shot an ad and had purchased TV time. Since then, I have located three broadcast TV contracts on the Federal Communications Commission’s website for their campaign.
The contract shown below is with WRC-TV, Washington’s NBC affiliate. The committee bought 9 spots for a gross amount of $15,300 during the time period of 10/28-11/3. The spots were shown on the Today Show and local news shows.
The contract shown below is with WJLA, Washington’s ABC affiliate. The committee bought 14 spots for a gross amount of $10,150 during the time period of 10/28-11/2. The spots were shown on Good Morning America and local news shows.
The contract shown below is with WTTG, Washington’s Fox affiliate. The committee bought 8 spots for a gross amount of $6,300 during the time period of 10/28-11/3. The spots were shown on the evening news show.
That’s 31 spots for $31,750. It’s not a lot of TV spending even though the spots were well placed. But the committee also ran social media ads. Facebook’s Media Ad Library shows 14 ads run by Committee for Better Government since September. For the entire period of 2018-24, Facebook reports that the committee spent $15,873 on ads.
To date, the pro-term limits committee has spent $201,826 to pass its charter amendment. Of that amount, $99,604 was spent to get the charter amendment on the ballot and $102,222 was spent to persuade voters to support it.
Compare that to the $123 spent by Against Question A: Make Your Vote Count, the anti-term limits committee, as of October 20. That amount was all for credit card service processing charges. The committee must have spent more because it printed yard signs, but since it showed just $3,650 in fundraising on its last report, it probably had little money to spend.
Whatever the final margin of the term limits ballot question, the imbalance in spending between the two campaigns will be part of the story. Yes, the opponents of term limits had the Apple Ballot and the Democratic sample ballot, but those assets did not make a difference in the end.