{"id":7696,"date":"2017-03-03T07:00:21","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T12:00:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=7696"},"modified":"2017-03-02T15:38:29","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T20:38:29","slug":"will-taxpayers-fund-fickers-next-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/?p=7696","title":{"rendered":"Will Taxpayers Fund Ficker\u2019s Next Campaign?"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco.<\/em><\/p>\n

As MCM<\/a> and Seventh State<\/a> have reported, MoCo political heckler Robin Ficker<\/a> is running for County Executive.\u00a0 That\u2019s not shocking \u2013 Ficker has a long history of running for office and almost always losing<\/a>.\u00a0 What\u2019s new is that Ficker is planning on acquiring a new source of campaign funds.<\/p>\n

You, the public.<\/p>\n

Ficker\u2019s campaign website<\/a> explicitly refers to the county\u2019s new public financing system, under which the county matches campaign contributions made by individual residents (but not PACs, corporate entities or non-residents).\u00a0 The system is opt-in; candidates can use the traditional financing system if they wish.\u00a0 Ficker created a public financing account to run for Executive on February 8.\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t mean he will necessarily get public funds.<\/p>\n

Ficker\u2019s campaign website home page.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The county\u2019s system does not distribute taxpayer money to everyone who participates.\u00a0 Instead, it sets up a number of thresholds candidates must reach before they are eligible for public matching funds.\u00a0 Under the law<\/a>, a candidate for Executive must receive at least 500 contributions of $150 or less from county residents totaling at least $40,000 before he or she is eligible for public funds.\u00a0 The candidate cannot accept money from PACs or businesses and cannot take individual contributions of higher amounts.\u00a0 Once eligible, the candidate can collect up to $600 in taxpayer funds for each $150 contributed by an individual.\u00a0 Lesser matching amounts apply to smaller contributions on a sliding scale.\u00a0 Lower thresholds and different match levels apply to those running for County Council at-large and district seats.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Could Ficker get public money?\u00a0 Ficker has used two campaign accounts over the last decade, the Robin Ficker for Homeowners Committee (which he used in two runs for County Council) and the Fickers for 15 Slate (which he used to run for the General Assembly along with his son in 2014).\u00a0 The two accounts together raised $262,762.\u00a0 Of that amount, Ficker self-financed $259,108, or 99% of his take.\u00a0 A total of 33 individuals other than Ficker gave to the two accounts.\u00a0 So Ficker has a long ways to go to get public money.\u00a0 However, he does plan to use his term limits petition information to raise contributions<\/a>.\u00a0 Ficker gathered 17,649 signatures.\u00a0 If just three percent of those folks contribute $150 or less to his campaign, Ficker will qualify for public matching funds.<\/p>\n

And so here is the cost of public campaign financing.\u00a0 If taxpayers are to fund the campaigns of candidates they might support, they may also have to fund the campaigns of those they do not.\u00a0 Even the clown prince of political hecklers.\u00a0 Even Robin Ficker.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adam Pagnucco. As MCM and Seventh State have reported, MoCo political heckler Robin Ficker is running for County Executive.\u00a0 That\u2019s not shocking \u2013 Ficker has a long history of running for office and almost always losing.\u00a0 What\u2019s new is that Ficker is planning on acquiring a new source of campaign funds. You, the public. … Continue reading Will Taxpayers Fund Ficker\u2019s Next Campaign?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151,138,286],"tags":[1545,1908,1596],"class_list":["post-7696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adam-pagnucco","category-campaign-finance","category-robin-ficker","tag-adam-pagnucco","tag-public-campaign-financing","tag-robin-ficker"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4mKJE-208","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7696"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7696\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7700,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7696\/revisions\/7700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theseventhstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}