It’s October, and it’s election season. Which means that in my neighborhood – and probably yours too – political flyers are everywhere. Glossy, full-color, and expensive. On every porch. Littered across every front stoop. Tucked under welcome mats. Looped around doorknobs. Peeking out of mailboxes. 

I step over a pile of them as I walk up the stairs of another apartment building in San Francisco’s working-class Excelsior neighborhood, clipboard in hand. I knock on apartment 2A, and a woman named Marta opens the door a crack. We talk about the election. She’s pretty sure she’s registered. She’s planning to vote, but hasn’t decided who for. Top of mind for her are healthcare, the garbage on the street, and most of all, housing costs. As it happens, I’m canvassing for a local candidate who has helped to fight for tenant protections in Chinatown. We part ways having made a real connection.

These person-to-person conversations are critical, especially for reaching voters who have historically been ignored by traditional outreach campaigns – even in progressive races. It’s important that our people know that there are still candidates out there who are connected to constituents. Candidates who value one-on-one conversations, community organizing, and collaboration. At the end of the day, all of us want a local government that represents the people — where candidates and elected officials focus on what our communities need, not what big-money donors and wealthy special interests want. 

The story we see playing out in the Bay Area – where a small percentage of households hold much of the region’s immense wealth – is a microcosm of a larger trend. Unchecked income inequality is toxic to democracy. As it grows, it could become harder and harder to elect a functioning government that represents and cares for all its people – unless we lean into proven methods that will help Californians get results from local government on the things that matter most, from affordable housing to quality schools and community safety. 

This election, a cadre of multi-millionaires in California are banking on their money outweighing the will of the people. Walmart and other big retailers have bankrolled the campaign to pass Proposition 36 this November; that campaign has recently funneled over $1 million to the California Republican Party. In Oakland, our mayor and our county district attorney are staring down a firehose of private money from a handful of ultra-rich donors who want to kick them out of office this November. A single hedge fund executive has spent more than a million dollars on donations and campaign loans to recall progressive Bay Area elected officials in this cycle. (That same donor was one of the top contributors to the recall of San Francisco DA Chesa Boudin in 2022.)

Two Southern California financiers with ties to developers hoping to build a coal terminal in Oakland injected $24,000 into the typically low-profile City Attorney race this year, backing a candidate they believe may support their interests. Notably, this candidate is also the public face of the District Attorney recall effort, raising further questions about her alignment with influential anti-democratic interests. With the terminal project stalled by legal challenges and community organizing, the next City Attorney’s stance could determine whether Oakland upholds its commitment to environmental protection or yields to moneyed outside groups.

Here in Oakland, people are eager to see a publicly funded elections program to make sure local government is more accountable and delivers on constituents’ needs and desires. In fact, Oaklanders voted by huge margins to implement one when they approved Measure W in 2022. A similar movement is getting off the ground in nearby San José right now, in the heart of Silicon Valley. In Seattle, which implemented the prototype for these programs in a mayoral race in 2021, the number of residents contributing financially to election campaigns doubled. In other words, we’re seeing strong support for public funding of elections in regions with some of the largest wealth gaps in the nation. 

Public funding of elections is an effective, popular antidote to rocketing wealth inequality and corporate influence. This strategy aims to reduce the influence of private money in campaigns and promote democratic principles by providing qualifying candidates with government funds for their campaigns. Common designs include matching funds systems, where small donations are matched, and fixed grant programs that offer a set amount of funding to qualifying candidates. Another innovative approach is democracy dollars, which allocate a specific amount of public funding to each eligible voter, allowing them to donate to the candidates of their choice.

As usual, the grassroots is sowing seeds for a better future. But we need to create better political conditions if these local initiatives are going to take root and spread. To do so, we need to knock down the legal and structural barriers to implementing publicly funded elections for more accountable and representative government at the federal and statewide level. 

Existing legislation and court rulings on elections are major immediate hurdles for our movements. At the federal level, we’re up against Citizens United. Here in California, state law has long banned counties, districts, and most cities from offering public funds for campaigns. Only charter cities, which operate under their own local governing documents, are exempt from the ban and free to approve public funding for campaigns.

Our system almost took a different path. Four decades ago, the California legislature passed a bill by then-Senator Bill Lockyer that would have provided partial public funding of elections – but it was vetoed by Republican Governor George Deukmejian. In 1988, two dueling propositions were on the ballot: Prop 68 would have established public funding of campaigns and created strict campaign finance limits, and Prop 73 aimed to ban public funding of campaigns. Both initiatives won over 50% of the vote. But Prop 73 narrowly edged out Prop 68, and gave Big Money carte blanche to further infiltrate politics statewide.

Today, we’re seeing widespread enthusiasm for public funding of elections and good government measures across the country. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, 14 states and 26 localities already use some form of public funding for elections. In Chicago, where the City Council is currently considering adding a public funding option, nearly 80% of Chicago voters expressed support for a publicly funded system in a 2015 referendum. In New York, 62% of voters want to see public funding of campaigns in New York State, and want the program to be fully funded. 

Here in California, there’s strong support for rolling back the statewide ban. According to a 2019 poll by the California Clean Money Campaign, nearly 80% of likely California voters feel that Big Money campaign contributors have too much influence over elected officials. Nearly 70% believe ordinary voters have too little influence. When given the chance to pass publicly funded elections measures, voters in charter cities have passed them by large majorities. Los Angeles’ Measure H passed with three-quarters of the vote in 2011, Berkeley’s Measure X1 passed with 65% of the vote in 2016, and Oakland’s Measure W passed with 74% of the vote in 2022. 

Cities show what’s possible

When Oakland voters passed Measure W, known locally as the Democracy Dollars program, they did so because they could see that Big Money was having a major impact on their day-to-day lives. Corporate real estate donations were pouring into local elections like never before. Voters could draw a straight line between those donations and the City’s inaction on soaring housing costs, rising rents, and unfair evictions.

Public safety was a concern, too. Millionaire tech execs were funding candidates who wanted to double down on policing, surveillance, and criminalization, rather than champion the community support policies that actually keep our neighborhoods safe. Democracy Dollars appealed to voters because they wanted local government accountability on the issues that impacted them most, and they could see that that starts with elections.

In San José, a broad coalition with backing from community organizations, good democracy groups, labor unions, and more have come together to pass broad campaign funding reforms, including a Democracy Dollars program. San José, home to Silicon Valley and some of the richest people in the entire world, has seen tech money pour into the political arena, often hurting the communities who have made the city home for decades, if not generations. By working towards this program, the coalition aims to empower these same communities and give an opportunity to all candidates, regardless of how much money they have or how many rich people they know. 

These types of efforts are also happening throughout the state. Los Angeles has a matching funds system that has enabled the City Council to become the most diverse it’s ever been. Just five years ago, only two out of 15 councilmembers were women – while today, seven women sit on the Council, all of whom used matching funds in their campaigns.

In San Diego, in line with a recent Maplight study that demonstrated how large donors have dominated campaign spending, community and good government organizations have built out a coalition to pass a fair elections program that includes publicly funded elections. This type of effort would work to address the major inequities in campaign funding amidst a climate of increasingly expensive campaigns. There are also burgeoning publicly funded elections efforts in Los Angeles and Anaheim, with potential for more to come.

These local initiatives are only possible because they’re in charter cities. Only about a quarter of California’s cities operate by their own charter document, which means they’re exempt from the state law banning publicly funded elections. The other 350+ cities dotted across the state have no recourse against the power of Big Money at the moment. 

Advocates for public funding of elections are actively working to repeal the ban in non-charter cities and the state at large. In the most recent legislative session, SB 24 and its partner bill AB 270 (the California Fair Elections Act) both would have given voters across the state the opportunity to repeal this ban in the 2026 election. However, both of these bills were stopped before reaching the Assembly or Senate floors, likely due to legislative leadership’s intervention. Advocates are aiming for a bill because, while the California Fair Elections Act could be placed on the ballot through a signature-gathering initiative, the Political Reform Act allows the legislature to put such amendments on the ballot with a simple majority vote, saving millions in costs. Advocates believe that this proposal can still make it to the ballot in 2026, thanks to broad, diverse support from dozens of community and good government groups, but it will require significant effort to ensure the legislature passes a new bill next year, avoiding the fate of AB 270 and SB 24.

Funding the voice of the people

While we break down legal barriers to the solutions themselves, we also need to create new funding sources. Put simply, progressives haven’t yet invested in publicly funded elections in the way we need to. The barriers to publicly funded elections are structural as well as legal. Even in cities that are legally permitted to create these programs, it’s proven difficult to access the revenue to implement them. 

The costs of public funding of campaigns are extremely small compared to its significant benefits. In Oakland, Democracy Dollars would cost about $6 per resident per year. Los Angeles’ matching funds system, which helped its current mayor win despite over $100 million spent by her billionaire opponent, costs a mere 0.03% of the city’s budget.

A California Clean Money Campaign estimate found that expanding it to a full public funding system that allowed candidates to run without accepting any private donations would cost just over 0.1% of the budget. Is it worth spending 0.1%, or even 0.2%, of a city’s budget to ensure that the other 99.9% is directed by officials who weren’t elected by special interest money? The answer is obvious.

A crucial next step is to lower the barrier to entry for our cities and towns. In most localities, approving new revenue for publicly funded elections requires a two-thirds majority at the ballot.  A high threshold to approve funding means it’s much more expensive to run campaigns for these initiatives. In some California cities, a signature-gathering campaign can cost as much as $2 million. A statewide ballot measure to lower the threshold to 55% would make it easier for residents to vote to raise money for publicly funded elections projects.

As it stands, any publicly funded elections program competes with all other general fund needs – like community safety, firefighting, and other urgent priorities. In cities in financial crisis, those funds disappear quickly. For example, here in Oakland, implementation of Democracy Dollars is on hold until 2026. Statewide, we’re feeling the squeeze as well. California continues to face budget deficits and revenue issues because of Prop 13 and regressive taxation. 

In the meantime, cities considering new publicly funded elections initiatives will need to assess the will of the city council to fund these programs once they’re approved by voters. A successful campaign will require a strong champion on the council who will lead the charge over years. It will also benefit from the presence of multiple council members who are open to collaborating with the public on language and responding to community concerns. Ideally, council members would understand that other clean money and good government reforms, including contribution limits and disclosures, are good for their constituents and for the city at large. After the publicly funded elections initiative passes, advocates will need strong relationships with council members who will champion the program in budget fights, even as other priorities are high for them. 

Organizing for public funding of elections statewide may initially sound like a hard ask for our members, our donors, and our foundation partners. But it’s becoming clearer by the day that we have to dig deep right now. Our local movements to keep our communities safe, healthy, and affordable for everyone are full of brilliant, dedicated people. They are making incredible progress. From housing affordability, to workers’ rights, to public health protections, to winning a liveable wage, we’re seeing major local victories across our region and throughout our statewide coalitions. And yet, every election season, the grassroots face an uphill battle against well-funded candidates who want to undo their victories. It’s time to invest in long-term solutions to protect the power, voice, and vote of the people. 

Creating the conditions to win

Leaders and funders can look to emerging measures like the California Clean Money Act as an example of the kind of structural change we need to be creating across the country. As goes California, so goes the country. We’ve seen what our state’s extreme wealth gap has done to our politics: it’s a cautionary tale for cities and states everywhere.

Above all, funders should be looking to invest in on-the-ground organizing. Grassroots organizations representing working-class people of color are building the local infrastructure for good government efforts. They’re working in cities and towns all across the country to ensure that a diverse cadre of leaders are ready to step in and run for office as Big Money gets pushed out. These are the organizations going door-to-door and having in-person conversations with real people. Deep canvassing is the long game, and they’re in it for the long haul. 

This presidential election will define the conditions under which we organize – not only over the next four years, but likely the next four decades. Whether we inaugurate a President Harris or a President Trump in January, wresting control of our democracy from the corporate class will be critical to our future. That’s a battle we need to fight on all fronts.