Running for office? Grab your wallet
- September 27, 2010
Candidates seeking local office in the East Bay can expect to pony up for hefty fees -- and this is well before lawn signs sprout and campaigning begins.
A candidate for local office can pay $180 to $12,000 for a ballot statement to appear in a pamphlet sent to voters. The cost varies depending on the office and how many registered voters are in that jurisdiction. That fee is in addition to filing costs that can run from $25 to $150.
"I was shocked when I paid the fee," said Cindy McGovern, a Pleasanton council member running for mayor in November. "I was used to paying around $200 or $300. The city stopped subsidizing it and I didn't even realize that we were doing it."
After decades of helping candidates out with the fee, Pleasanton stopped the subsidy this year, in part because of budget concerns. Now council candidates pay the full $1,117 cost.
Albany also recently dropped its subsidy, leaving candidates to handle that city's $636 cost for ballot statements.
In Contra Costa County, the cost of ballot statements -- which are put together by county registrars of voters -- for city office candidates run from as low as $490 for Clayton and other small communities to a high of $1,590 in Concord. The cost for special district candidates in Contra Costa ranges from $180 in the Knightsen School District to $4,420 for Ward 6 of the East Bay Regional Park District.
In Alameda County cities, ballot statement fees can run from $590 for small city council districts such as San Leandro to $2,037 in Fremont. Special districts run even higher. The cost for a ballot statement for an at-large Alameda Contra Costa Transit District seat costs $10,521 and $12,732 for a county judicial seat.
The estimated fee is determined by the county based on the number of registered voters within a voting area. The money goes toward printing, mailing, typesetting and translating the statement in both Spanish and Chinese, said Cynthia Cornejo, deputy to the Alameda County registrar of voters.
The county does not profit from the fee and the cost is based on the number of registered voters in that particular jurisdiction. If the fee is lower than expected, candidates receive a refund for the difference. If it is more, a majority of the jurisdictions will send a bill for the remaining amount.
"One of the pro arguments for these fees is that these fees are designed for people that are serious candidates and have some support," said Kim Geron, chairman of the political science department at Cal State East Bay. "Whether that is fair is another thing."
Geron added that ballot statements can only help a candidate because it lists their qualifications and voters can find out who is endorsing the candidates.
If candidates cannot afford the fee they can file "indigent" paperwork that looks at the candidate's prior year tax returns and allows candidates to pay the amount over a period of time. Cornejo said that indigent filing is rare and that no one had filed for it this year.
She also pointed out that ballot statements are optional and are not required. A candidate could go with having their name listed on the sample ballot -- there is no charge for that.
But, "it is probably the cheapest form of advertising," Cornejo said about the ballot statement. "It gets your name and qualifications out there to every voter in that jurisdiction."
Few East Bay cities continue to subsidize candidate ballot statements, although some special districts do. In the East Bay, Berkeley and Oakland are the lone city holdouts still helping candidates.
In Oakland, candidates for both City Council and school district pay a $300 fee and the city picks up the remaining tab, which runs from $881 to $3,519.
In Berkeley, candidates have not had to pay anything for ballot statements since 1975. The City Council that year approved an ordinance agreeing to cover the cost. Before that decision, candidates paid $100 for a ballot statement.
"It's a small price to pay to give voters substantial information about where candidates stand on the issue," said state Sen. Loni Hancock, D-Berkeley. Hancock was on the 1975 Berkeley City Council that passed the ordinance.
"The more information voters have, the better it is for the democratic process," she said.
This year, if the city did not have such an ordinance, the 14 candidates seeking a seat on the City Council would have had to pay $1,700 each for a candidate statement.
Two Berkeley candidates, George Beier (District 7) and Jasper Kingeter (District 1), say they were aware of the $150 filing fee but weren't aware of the ballot statement fee.
"If I had to pay that fee, that would have greatly impacted my decision to run," said Kingeter, who is seeking his first public office and has spent $358 on his campaign so far. "There is no way I would have run if I had to pay that amount."
Added Beier: "The city should pick it up because it is a small fee for the city to pay for an enormous public benefit," he said. "It is really important for the public to know who the candidate is."
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