By Joy Hampton
The Norman Transcript
NORMAN — City meetings to watch this week include today’s 2 p.m. gathering of the Norman Election Commission, where two key issues — public finance of city campaigns and partisan campaigning in nonpartisan municipal elections — will be explored.
Discussion regarding establishing public finance for city council candidates will continue. Council member Tom Kovach asked the commission to research the possibility and prepare a report for the city council.
Kovach has said city council and mayoral races have become very expensive and he’d like to ensure that anyone who wants to run for office has a chance to do so. Most public financing programs have a base requirement that candidates must meet in order to qualify, usually a minimum of money the candidate must raise or signatures on a petition.
Also on the slate for the Election Commission is a report from the city’s legal department regarding partisan information being disseminated in city council elections. During the past two election campaigns, the Cleveland County GOP PAC has distributed information identifying the party affiliation of city council candidates. Most recently in the Ward 8 city election, the GOP PAC sent out glossy postcard mailers with endorsements by Republican candidates for the District 15 state senate seat. Photos of the four Republican candidates were included, and city candidate Chad Williams was endorsed as the only conservative candidate.
State law and the Norman City Charter prohibit a city council or mayoral candidate from declaring party affiliation.
The commission will also discuss a complaint filed by Norman resident Cindy Cason against the Cleveland County GOP PAC regarding the partisan mailer distributed in the Ward 8 run-off election.
Ward 5 City Council member Dave Spaulding also serves as the chair for the GOP PAC. He said in his opinion the mailers are educational. He and former chair Bobby Cleveland have said they have a right to freedom of speech in identifying the party affiliation of city candidates. Both also maintain that most people know which party the candidates are affiliated with anyway.
If the purpose of the nonpartisan ballot designation is to allow all Norman residents to vote on candidates regardless of party registration and without requiring primary and runoff elections, then the city may need to rethink its the implementation of its nonpartisan requirements.
City attorney Jeff Bryant had issued the initial opinion that the charter governs city candidates but cannot control what people and entities who are not candidates do. His office was investigating possible ways to address the situation and will report those findings on Monday.
Article II of the city charter deals with elections and section 11 specifically prohibits partisan designation of the candidates.
“No nominating notice nor acceptance thereof shall have upon it any party emblem, sign or designation, and there shall be nothing thereon to indicate the affiliation of the nominee or of any signer with any political party or any organization.”
“It’s public record,” Cleveland said. “I believe the voters have a right to know. We’re doing nothing but expressing our First Amendment rights.”
The party registration of candidates, as well as a record of the elections they voted in is a matter of public record available through the county election board.