Howard County Women Support Publicly Funded Elections
On Citizen Funded Elections…
“One of the most powerful tools we have, not to just take money out of politics but to get regular people into politics.” — Ben Jealous
On Friday, April 7th, friends and neighbors in Howard County, Maryland held a house party in support of the Howard County Citizens’ Election Fund.
The Citizens’ Election Fund encourages small donations from residents. Candidates agree not to take donations from corporations and cannot accept donations over $150. Public financing is one way to increase participation in a community by elevating the voices of everyday people over corporate interests. The Fund would help Howard County women leap over one of the major hurdles that women have to getting elected. The gender parity rules that the major parties have adopted apply to internal positions but not to candidate funding. Campaigns of women candidates are severely underfunded in comparison to their male counterparts at all levels of government.
Publicly funded elections build more reflective governments by creating more diverse candidate pools and empowering people to run on the strength of their ideas rather than the size of their wallets.
Last November, members of Howard County voted to pass the county charter amendment to create the citizens’ funded election program (53%-47%). Watch as Ben Jealous speaks to the strength of publicly funded elections and RSVP to show the Council how important the Fund is at the April 19th Public Hearing.
