2.01.380 Contributions for officeholder expenses. Notwithstanding any other provision of this Chapter, each elected city officeholder may establish an officeholder expense fund upon taking office. and may solicit and accept Contributions for said officeholder expense fund may be solicited and accepted not to exceed a total amount of ten thousand dollars ($10,000) twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) per calendar year for City Councilmembers and twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) seventy-five thousand dollars ($75,000) per calendar year for the City Auditor, City Attorney and Mayor
City Attorney Sept. 5 memo text to Committee: "Current annual amount that can be raised is too low for elected officials to serve/be active in the community, such as by attending community events, sponsoring district events, etc.
Current rule enables the contribution to be made to the political party, ballot measure committee, PAC, etc. and to buy an ad, etc., but the elected official can't attend the event. Elected officials should be able to attend political events (that are not for candidates) using their officeholder account funds because these events provide opportunities to forge relationships that benefit the community." | "Officeholder expense funds" were created by the Council after voters enacted the Political Reform Act. They were denounced at the time as a political slush-fund for incumbents by one of the Political Reform Act's prominent advocates, the late Jim Sturm.
"Officeholder expense funds" enable incumbents to collect contributions from various sources (who may or may not want the Councilmember's support on various items) which the incumbent can then dispense for items that pander to politically useful constituencies or can even be given to political entities.
Several years ago, the Council already voted to raise the allowable total "officeholder expense" sum to $10,000, enabled by a rationalization offered by City Auditor Doud who portrayed the contributed sums as a way to avoid tapping taxpayer budgeted sums for district items [avoiding focus on their possible use for political party, ballot measure comittee, PACs, etc.] The now-proposed item would more than double the total Councilmembers can receive...and triple the sum for the City Attorney, City Auditor and Mayor. |
| 2.01,389 Transfer of Funds.
Campaign funds and o Officeholder funds may not be used as a transfer, loan or contribution to any other candidate for local, State or federal elective office. [City Attorney memo comment] "Recognize that campaigns are a political endeavor and enable campaign funds to be used to make contributions to other candidates."
| In our view, this is among the most mischievous of the Committee's proposals. By striking the first few words of LB's current law, LB officeholders would be to transfer, loan or contribute to any other candidate for local, State or federal elective office. Simply put, if you (or others) give money to your favored candidate X running for one office; if elected he or she could then give the sum to some candidate you may or may not support for some other office. |
| 2.01.730 Disclosure of occupation and employer. DELETE [City Attorney office memo comment] "State law requires the contribution to be refunded if the donor's information is not obtained within 60 days. If the donations cannot be refunded (e.g. no address or phone #) the funds are required to be turned over to the state's general fund or local jurisdiction's general fund." | A direct attack on transparency, this change would enable politicians evade disclosing information about who's trying to elect them to office that is now legally required to be disclosed. "Refunds" mean nothing if they come after the election is over. |
