While we wait for numbers from the House and Senate races, let’s have some fun with some other numbers.
Outgoing Councilman Tom Moore wrote this morning on Facebook, stating that he thought the Team Rockville numbers were “just fine.” He then picked at Brigitta Mullican’s report, noting a $20 anonymous contribution that he claimed was “prohibited under Rockville law.” No it’s not. The very law cited by Mr. Moore prohibits the USE of an anonymous contribution, not its acceptance. “[A]ny money or other thing of value received from any unknown person or source by any treasurer, shall not be used for any political purpose whatsoever, but shall be paid by the treasurer so receiving the same, to the treasurer of the City.” So let’s dispense with that argument.
Mr. Moore’s second attempted attack on Mullican was that she accepted a contribution from Sweden. Which is no violation at all if the donor is an American citizen or green card holder living abroad. Which Moore doesn’t claim to know one way or the other. So the preemptive claim of illegality seems premature at best, and something else at worst.
My curiosity now piqued, and having no axe to grind one way or the other in Rockville, I spent the morning perusing all the campaign finance reports for the Rockville municipal elections. I’ve even put together a handy little chart pulling all the numbers together.
Here’s what I found. The best fundraisers – by far – were Brigitta Mullican and Beryl Feinberg. Mullican received 136 donations, just under 35% of all donations in the entire race of 10 candidates, and did it almost exclusively on small donors, averaging $52 per contribution. She also raised the most money, $7,090, more than 20% of the total amount raised by all candidates.
Beryl Feinberg, a former member of Team Rockville who is no longer on the slate, received contributions from 52 donors, three quarters of them from Rockville. She raised $4,436. That’s the good news – the bad news is she’s already spent much of it, having only $1,443 cash on hand. She’s going to have to go out and do it again over the next month if she wants to have the ability to do more direct mail and voter outreach.
Mark Pierzchala raised a higher amount than Feinberg ($5,385) but $2,000 of that is his contribution to himself. He also loaned himself an additional $10,000, which we’ll come back to in a moment.
Sima Osdoby, running for mayor, raised $4,733, but actually received more donations and dollars from outside Rockville than in, the only candidate to do so. More than 20% of her total dollars came from Somerset Mayor Jeffrey Slavin, who also donated $500 to Virginia Onley, which was 25% of her haul. None of this is even remotely improper – however, when last we saw Slavin, he was complaining about development in Bethesda, and the slate he’s contributing to in Rockville is very pro-development. So you’ve gotta scratch your head over what Slavin is doing making 4.4% of all contributions in the entire race in Rockville.
Other team members didn’t do so hot. Julie Palakovich Carr, aside from her $1,500 contribution to herself, raised $1,365. Virginia Onley raised $1,500, augmented further by Slavin’s $500. First-time candidate Clark Reed raised $1,660, and added another $1,481 loan to himself and a $600 contribution to the slate.
Of the remaining candidates, Richard Gottfried deserves mention. He only raised $1,060, but he loaned himself $13,597, and he spent virtually all of it, ending up with $880 cash on hand. Is he done spending? If he’s got another wad of cash to spend, will he focus only on his own campaign, or will he potentially team up with someone else? We will have to see.
So looking at the slate overall, the five members raised $16,643, of which $3,500 was self-funding, meaning the actual fundraising was right around $13,000.
The other three (seemingly) aligned candidates, Newton/Feinberg/Mullican, raised $14,366, all of which was raised from others. So the three outraised the five.
But here’s where the slate comes in, not to mention the self-funding Pierzchala. When you look at the cash on hand, including loans, what appears to be a well-balanced race financially ends up looking anything but. The slate’s cash on hand, including money moved over to Team Rockville, is $21,500. The cash on hand for the Newton/Feinberg/Mullican team, which actually raised more money, is $8,259 – two and a half times less than the slate. A little bit of that is because the slate didn’t spend a lot so far. But it’s much more about Mark Pierzchala’s $12,000. It’s one thing to spend on your own campaign, but propping up an entire slate is something else altogether.
So with all due respect to Tom Moore, the story here really isn’t about anonymous contributions or Swedish guys. It’s about money and slates. And none of this actually gets to the issues before the city as it goes about electing its first four-year leadership in its history. The way this is shaping up, only one side of that argument is going to be heard. And I have a problem with that, especially when it’s the other side that has done the better job fundraising to date.
We’ll see what happens. I think it might be time for a Maryland Scramble field trip to Rockville.
Maryland Scramble 