Rob Arnow is working with Supervisors & the gay democratic clubs to implement public funding of the mayoral campaign in San Francisco, which would radically alter the tide for progressive politics in SF.

Except for New York, where billionaire-Mayor Michael Bloomberg has blown away all spending records to, critics say, pay his way into City Hall there, election experts say San Francisco’s 2003 mayoral contest was the most expensive election, per vote, of any in American history.

Calculated from his campaign cost and his vote total in the runoff election, now-Mayor Gavin New-som spent $42 per vote, about five times Matt Gonzalez, his closest rival.  That’s two crisp twenties and a coffee at Starbucks per check mark on the ballot.

“Except for self-funded candidates, in my years of experience in this field, I’ve never seen anything like it. And it’s many times more than anyone I know in the field of campaign finance has ever seen,” said San Francisco Ethics Commissioner Joe Lynn.

But that’s old news. The problem, critics say, is that while Bloomberg spent a measurable but tiny fraction ($70 million) of his $5.1 billion net worth to get elected in 2001 (he’s on track to spend $100 million to get re-elected this Nov. 8), and his cost-per-vote is about double Newsom’s—Bloomberg owes almost nobody but himself.

Newsom collected his record-breaking total from a wide variety of sources, in $750 increments.

Without criticizing Newsom personally (even potential rivals don’t point to any wrongdoing by Newsom) city officials and watchdog groups say that campaign money in those kinds of huge quantities is unhealthy for the city.

So on Tuesday, Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi (who worked on Gonzalez’s campaign), introduced a plan for the 2007 mayor’s race which worked, said Lynn, at the Board of Supervisors level to make it easier for under-funded but popular candidates to get elected: public financing.

Four other city Supervisors including Tom Ammiano, six Democratic party clubs, Assembly-man Mark Leno, the city’s two largest unions, the moderate San Francisco Planning and Urban Research (SPUR) and a 40-member coalition of supporting organizations back it. 

“Voter Owned Elections ensures that politicians are accountable to the public, rather than their campaign contributors,” said Mirkarimi.

“It’s about leveling the playing field,” said campaign coordinator Rob Arnow. “And when the playing field is level politicians are competing on the strength of their ideas.”

But how expensive would it be? The program would match private contributions with public money with as much as one dollar of city money for every 25 cents a candidate raised. If a candidate brought in $525,000 privately, they would get $850,000 from the fund, up to a total spending limit of $1.375 million—about a quarter of what Newsom spent last time.

After that, if they’re competing against a candidate who refuses to accept the spending limit (and the city cash that comes with it), the fund will match private contributions, dollar for dollar, until there’s no money left. The total cost of the plan is capped at two dollars per San Francisco resident per year, so about $6 million for each four-year election cycle.

Mirkarimi and Arnow say that $6 million isn’t much compared to the inefficiencies in San Francisco’s $5 billion city government caused by the burden of fund-raising on elected officials. “We don’t blame Newsom personally,” Arnow said, “But politicians are spending an inordinate amount of time raising money. This will allow them more time running government rather than dialing for dollars.”

But Arnow and his ad-hoc group, called “Voter Owned Elections,” say that there was rampant favoritism to contributors during the Willie Brown administration, citing approximately $77 million in city contracts awarded to big givers.

Newsom is still struggling to pay off a $195,000 campaign debt. But it’s not easy. His fund raisers nick him for about half the donations, so for every dollar he brings in, only about 50 cents goes to the debt.

That debt was the source of the only major scandal of his administration when an assistant in his campaign finance lawyer’s office accidentally sent the city’s Ethics Commission a draft of what appeared to be an illegal plan to use money from his swearing-in committee fund (which allowed no-limits donations) to pay down the debt of his general campaign (where donations are fixed at $750 per person). There is no indication that Newsom even knew of the scheme.

According to Arnow, the plan would boost progressive candidates, like Gonzalez and Ammiano, who run with public support but can’t raise much money. To qualify, candidates would have to raise $25,000 in donations up to $100. In the most recent mayor’s race, Ammiano got about 450 small donations like that, and would have qualified for the program about four months before the general election.

By contrast, neither perennial candidate Jim Reid nor Republican Tony Ribera would have made the cut.

Arnow, who is 28 and works as a graphic designer when he’s not running the ad-hoc group called San Franciscans for Voter Owned Elections, says that similar proposals are in place and working in other places, most notably in Arizona, where all statewide races are publicly funded.

Both gay Democratic Party clubs back the plan. Assemblyman Mark Leno (D) walked Arnow into a meeting of moderate Alice B. Toklas Democratic Club, which voted overwhelmingly to endorse the idea on Oct. 10, as had the more progressive Harvey Milk Club about two months before.

Leno got his start in politics as a fund-raiser and board member for many gay-related charities, and is now one of the Democratic Party’s top money getters in California. But he says now he’d rather not have his hand out, reaching for a check. “It can get tiresome,” he said.

Leno co-sponsored Assembly Member Loni Hancock’s (D-East Bay) statewide public finance bill, which is currently in the Assembly.

“It’s just the nature of large sums of money in any campaign. They can have their influence. This is a neat way of removing any potential abuse of that influence,” Leno said.

Leno discussed the proposal with Newsom about three weeks ago. But neither the mayor himself nor his staff have taken a position on it.

Introduced this week, the proposal could go before a Supervisors’ committee in as little as 30 days, then on to a full board vote. Backers need only one more Supervisor to capture a majority on the board. Eight votes would override a mayoral veto. The proposal could become law as quickly as two months.

Leno, like Newsom, says that when he takes a campaign contribution, he doesn’t feel like he’s making a promise. “I don’t believe I’m promising anything except to do my job in a respectful fashion,” Leno said.

“All I can say is that it’s part of the job, and I take it seriously, and at the same time wish it did not need to be done.”