Publicly funded campaigns: How to buy a mayor for the City of Miami? ... by gimleteye

Normally the concept of publicly funded campaigns is that a pool of money is created from taxpayer dollars, like a blind trust, that candidates for public office can access if they pledge not to raise money from private corporations or individuals. In the abnormal form of publicly funded elections, the City of Miami stands out. The deal that puts taxpayers in the way of $2.4 billion for the new Marlins stadium has spawned a whole chain reaction of campaign contributions to mayoral candidate, Joe Sanchez. Credit Stephen Murray with the research (building on Genius's research posted on the 16th). So, it is necessary to broaden the definition of publicly funded campaigns to include elected officials like Sanchez who pitched decisions that benefit a single special interest that put local taxpayers in the position of catcher.

Most money raised for local political campaigns comes from individuals or corporations that do business with government. Real estate and development interests that depend on zoning, permits, or subsidies are top of the list throughout the state of Florida. In a perverse way, the Marlins' stadium deal is only one example of how we already publicly fund campaigns through the backdoor. Here is another example: Jorge Perez gives plentifully to local political races, depending on who voted for zoning for his multi-thousand unit projects. When Perez' billion dollar empire goes belly up and his debt is taken over by banks that are solvent by the grace of US taxpayers, doesn't that make candidates he has contributed to, publicly funded?

This leads to an understanding of the fallacy of the "green shoots" economic recovery the media is searching for with a magnifying glass and figurative tweezers: construction and development interests, who drove Florida's economy based on population growth and "expansion of tax base", are now wards of the state. That's also why Florida Hometown Democracy is so threatening to the building trade associations and the Chamber of Commerce: once voters start taking back from local elected officials the terrible decisions that turned Florida into a concrete jungle, there is no telling where their uppity behavior may stop.