Dear Mayor and Members of the Chapel Hill Town Council,
The liberals always say: “speak truth to power”, so that’s what I decided to do. The debate over whether our local elections should be publicly funded using our tax money really comes down to one important issue. That issue is our fundamental right to free speech. The founders of our constitution wanted our free speech protected, especially political speech. Today, every group, no matter how vile, has their speech protected. Why do we therefore want to restrict our political free speech?
That’s exactly what will happen if candidates are restricted to spending a set amount of money for their campaigns. The Chapel Hill Town Council is going to vote on whether to publicly fund local elections on June 9th.
Because we have a free press, the local newspapers can continue to advocate for their candidates without any restrictions. The less money a challenger can spend, the more likely an incumbent will get re-elected.
In Chapel Hill, its not about rich people having influence, it’s about squelching the possibility of dissenters getting elected to Town Council. There’s not a liberal in the country who’s worried about George Soros getting too much influence from the tens of millions that he spends on politics.
A handful of people who run the county politically, such as the Sierra Club or the Democrat party essentially will pick the candidates who are on our town council, if the law is passed. They’ll send out an e-mail for the candidates they anoint and the contributions will roll in.
A candidate who is a moderate, a genuine independent, a Republican, or a newcomer, will have a much more difficult time getting the 75 financial contributions needed to qualify for matching public funds. So, in effect, it is a daunting hurdle. The pool of candidates resulting from the passage of this law would be less diverse.
It would be another unnecessary burden to the taxpayer and I know I wouldn’t want my tax dollars supporting a candidate whose views I totally disagreed with.
Sincerely,
Terri Tyson
108 Telluride Trail
Chapel Hill, N.C. 27514
May 28, 2008