By Adam Pagnucco.
Part One discussed the origins of public financing in Montgomery County and Part Two laid out how it has been used in the last two cycles.
Let’s focus more on the sources of money in the public financing system.
The pie chart below shows the distribution of money received by publicly financed candidates in the last two cycles (2018 and 2022), the first two in which the system was used.
Public matching funds, which is taxpayer money, is the dominant source of money for publicly financed candidates. That’s because of the matching formulas in county law that match in-county individual contributions with public funds at a greater than 1-to-1 rate. (Currently, the first $50 contributed to a county executive candidate in public financing is matched at a rate of 7 to 1.) Individual in-county contributions may trigger public matching funds, but the latter comprise a much larger share of participating candidate receipts. To date, the system has distributed $8.8 million of taxpayer money to publicly financed candidates.
Because the matching funds are subject to different formulas, different thresholds and different caps varying between county executive and county council races, their receipt percentage can vary. The chart below shows matching funds’ percentage of total funds by race type.
Candidates for executive receive higher percentages of their receipts from public matching funds because their formula and cap are more generous than for council candidates. But matching funds account for a majority of money in all of these races, even when including candidates who did not qualify for them.
Below is a list of candidates who have received the most money from all sources in public financing.
County Executive Marc Elrich is the leader because he is only the person who has run for executive twice in the system. Not only is he a well-known politician who has maxed out matching funds in both primaries (and came close in the 2018 general election), he is also running in executive races that have the most generous matching formula and the highest cap on matching funds. Former Council Member Hans Riemer is second because he was the only council at-large incumbent in the system in 2018 and he used the system to run for executive in 2022. Rose Krasnow, George Leventhal and Robin Ficker used the system in the 2018 executive race. Evan Glass, Gabe Albornoz and Brandy Brooks used the system in both council at-large races. Will Jawando and Bill Conway used the system in the 2018 council at-large race. Jawando did well in public financing but opted not to use it in 2022. He has returned to public financing for next year’s county executive race.
The candidates below have received the most money from public matching funds.
This list closely resembles the all-funds list because matching funds account for most money in public financing. I hope you like these candidates, because as a taxpayer, you paid to get many of them elected!
We will start looking at geography next.