Since it was a land slide victory for the candidates that were endorsed by the Teacher's Union, I was wondering how much campaign funding came with the endorsement?
I am fine with the Teacher's Union funding people and referendums that that they believe in. This is what I did, do and will do. I would just like to know how much this entity is influencing our community's choices.
Does anyone know if funding info similar to this article is available for the Candidate's campaign funding? (Vote YES funding) I'd love to have a link for the readers.
Also, what do you think about the Teacher's Union being a key advertiser during these community votes?
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19 comments:
I wouldn't call this a landslide victory for the incumbents. It was an orchestrated win by entrenched special interests. There was no primary to establish candidate platforms. The election was held in the off year at double the cost to the District i.e.taxpayer. The turnout was terrible and the amount of money confiscated from teachers and spent on signs and advertising by the Union as opposed to funding available to individual candidates certainly hurt all of the challengers.
With that said, a huge thank you to ALL the candidates who conducted a very civil campaign and engaged their constituents and challengers in polite open discourse. I look forward to engaging them in future dialogue.
The 4 winners got 9484 votes (60%) and the 7 challengers and "write in" got 6287 votes (40%). That is a pretty sound win, if not a landslide...
Now how did the money influence "who" got out to vote and "who" did not. I am not sure it does or can. It just provides name recognition and info.
Are you saying that name recognition doesn't influence the vote? Isn't that a major reason that incumbents get returned to office no matter what their voting record shows? How else would you explain the "lifetime" terms of elected officials at every level of government?
No, you misunderstood. I agree that name recognition and information can sway voters. This money can buy.
My thought is how would incumbent campaign funding have prevented the fed up "Vote No'ers" or "you closed my schoolers" from showing up at the polls and ousting the villains. Their passion must burn hot, but not very deep on this topic.
Just pondering...
Every candidate has to fill out tax forms and have them submitted to the district within 10 days of the election. If the total donations + spent is less than $750 it's pretty easy. We should be able to request this information in due time due to election laws.
And trust me - I will be requesting this information so I have an idea for next time.
DJ
I believe the union endorsement brings with it a $500 campaign donation, which explains why you saw many more signs from the union endorsed. Plus, if they save their signs from previous elections, they can easily be more visible.
Quite honestly, I'm very disappointed with the results, particularly in our precinct. I don't know how you get past voter apathy. Four years ago, I had lived in the neighborhood for one year, did not have kids in school, and I didn't bother to vote either.
When is the next time? 3 seats in 2 yrs?
We'll have to start having monthly community bake sales if we want to exceed a $1,500+ Teacher's Union budget...
I make pretty good "box" fudge brownies, and those "cut em and bakem" choclate chip cookies...
Yes, John all candidate must file campaige finance reports with the school district head of elections. They must provide information. There should be filings already for all pre-election revenue and expenses (14 days prior to election). 10 days after election is next filing due.
What is missing is the expenses paid directly by Unions on advertising or signs to third parties
Keep up the fight for better education information.
Something we should also remember is that the three incumbents up this year were the three top bananas, all current or former chairs. That's mostly why I endorsed and voted for them.
The three incumbents were clearly the superior candidates. It would have been hard for the RFT not to endorse them and retain credibility.
The question for RFT as it was for many voters was who to support for the fourth position. Since they were much less well known, people were looking for anything that would lift a particular candidate above the crowd. The RFT endorsement of Mark Bomchill gave him instant credibility, making him the candidate to beat. Combined with that, Mark was also a very energetic campaigner. He says right things, although sometimes it takes him a few tries to get them right.
I was very pleased with the outcome of the election. With the re-election of Patsy, Linda and Tom, we have kept three effective leaders on the board. For the fourth position, we have in Mark Bomchill someone who has a lot to learn, but that would have been true of anyone elected for the first time. I am pretty sure that he has the energy and capacity to learn what he needs to know. I look to him to provide an independent voice on the board, but I also hope he understands the importance of working together for the benefit of the entire community.
I wish Mark all the best.
Given the process of the election I have to question your conclusion that the outcome resulted in a postive outcome for the District and local residents. We have returned the folks who brought us a failed referendum followed by an RFT funded successful referendum campaign as the links in your earlier post show and seriously mismanaged school closures.
The status quo, I will not single out specific people because this is not about the individual,it is about a system and process that is in serious need of reform. The election process planners who decided not to hold a primary and set up a very short campaign season leaving challengers little to no time to articulate their message completely abrogated a fair and open election.
John, you mentioned in an earlier post that the winners were supported by a 60/40 margin. That is misleading in that no one candidate got more than 18% of the total votes cast in an election which, by the numbers you quoted is less than a quarter of the registered voters. We can simply blame the voters who didn't turnout or we can examine the election process orchestrated an entrenched bureaucracy that seriously disenfranchised voters.
Jon,
Now really, saying that they were "Clearly the Superior Candidates" surely is not the way to bring this community together or make friends. I can understand saying "most knowledgeable" and "most experienced", these are facts I can grasp.
But "Superior" implies to me a judgement that their guidance will be better than the contenders would have been. Given the current challenges RAS still faces, I am pretty sure there are many citizens that disagree with your judgement.
The reality is that the Teacher's picked candidates that would maintain the choice programs, prevent competition by charter schools, avoid accountability and reward programs, and seek to find money to finance these choices. This is in their best interests and I can respect that.
Wants2Know,
I know we disagree, however if citizens don't vote. They are 100% responsible for the results. It took me 10 minutes to pull off the road, register, vote and get back on the road...
I believe the primary was eliminated after a school board primary 2-3 elections ago that reduced the number of candidates from 9 to 8 (a school board primary reduces the number of candidates to twice the number of seats being contested).
In terms of the length of the campaign season, candidates filed in early September and were named in the SunPost the next week. It was surprising that most of the challengers did not choose to do much campaigning until close to the League of Women Voters forum, if then. Many people were looking for any info on the candidates they could find, and coming up empty. There were countless events they could have attended. Printing up fliers is inexpensive and would have gotten them publicity and perhaps contributions.
How can the "election process planners" be blamed for the lack of message articulation by challengers? A number of them had difficulty answering just why they were running (other than a short slogan or a brief concept) and showed a distinct lack of knowledge about the school district, its issues and its finances. Many voters believe their vote needs to be earned by the candidates. Show me you've done some real work, not just that you had $2 to file for election.
There wasn't any doubt in my mind that Patsy, Linda and Tom were by far the best candidates. In saying that I didn't mean to knock anyone else. Among other things, the eight other candidates didn't have the depth of knowledge and the experience of the incumbents who had served well during a very difficult time for Robbinsdale schools, and that wasn't their fault.
As far as guidance goes, I didn't hear a lot from the non-incumbents about anywhere in particular they wanted to take the district. None of them seemed very interested in addressing the issues which have on occasion, divided our community. I can tell you now, that I was surprised by that.
In reading back the last few sentences of my comment above, I see they read a bit harsh, which was not my intent. I don't at all doubt the sincerity of all of the candidates, incumbent and challenger alike. I simply believe that voters often need a higher level of "comfort" with a challenger and many of them had not done enough homework to give that to the voters.
Ouch on this thread. I think people had ideas for different directions, the problem (and this is our - candidates problem) is we did a piss poor job of getting the message out. There is an advantage of being an incumbent. You have done it before, you know the process and what to do. To get an endorsement of the RFT helps also, because not only do they give you cash to help fund the process but they also have resources to help you through the process. Other candidates also endoursed by the RFT are a lot more willing to assist in that process - as it is seen as less of a threat. In circle and all. Mark did more than everyone else and deserves the credit for that.
As speed has said - you fail once but stick with it, learn from it and run a second time. I promise you this. Next time you will so damn tired of hearing my name, message, thoughts, beliefs, worldly concerns and ideas that people will simply vote to keep me quiet. :-)
I did just about every rookie mistake a person could make the first time around, thought I could do it all myself, stupid with signs, post cards, did not even put my name on the ballot that almost everyone knows me by - and I still almost got there. Not next time.
DJ
Brynteson in 2011
And we start by actually registering a name on the blogs... :-)
Just an FYI, I have a request in with RAS to get the 11 Campaign Financial Reports when they are all submitted. I'll post with a summary after I get them.
I'll save the suspense on mine. I didn't exceed 750 dollars so mine is not itemized. My guess is we will only see four that exceeded the 750 and that will those who won.
DJ
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