City Council For Sale. $1,500 OBO. As is. No returns.

Your City Council is for sale. The price? $2,500 will get you an at-large representative on speed dial. For the budget conscious, an in-district rep can be had for a relative steal at $1,500. I have blogged on this before. First, please go read my original post and pay close attention to the dollar amounts I listed. Go ahead. I'll wait. Click here. Okay. What did we learn? Somewhere between July 25th and now, somebody lobbied hard and got the originally proposed in-district limit doubled to $1,500. That's more than four times the current limit of $325. This ordinance is coming out of the Finance and Audit Committee with a recommendation of "Do Pass." That generally gets a unanimous vote from the full Council because (begin sarcasm) why take time to learn about what you're voting on when you can let four or five of your fellow councilpeople from a committee tell you how to vote? (end sarcasm) Look for that vote this Thursday. I'm guessing there will probably be one "No" vote because it's time to start grabbing press attention for the mayoral race. Losing 12-1 is an easy way to look good without actually accomplishing anything. I leave you with this final thought from the actual ordinance language: "WHEREAS, the City council further finds that regulation of campaign contributions is required because the costs of running political campaigns have reached levels that lead to a public perception that special interests and wealthy individuals may have undue influence on or access to elected officials;" Explain to me, no wait; explain to all of us how quadrupling the amount individuals and PACs can contribute to an in-district candidate is "limiting undue influence?" As a couple of good friends of mine say "If you're not outraged you're not paying attention."