Democratic Party endorsement fees are undemocratic
The Allegheny County Democratic Committee charges significant fees to consider a candidate for the party’s endorsement in local races. It’s a pay-to-play policy that undemocratically restricts the number of people who can realistically run for public office. The committee should scrap it.
For county-wide offices, including county executive and judge of the Court of Common Pleas, the fee even to be considered for an endorsement — not to be endorsed, just to be considered — is $7,500. For citywide races, it’s $2,000, while county council bids cost $1,000. To be considered as a candidate for the Pittsburgh City Council or School Board costs the bargain basement rate of $500.
The message is clear: Unless you have the means to pay up, or the political connections to get others to pony up, you need not apply to be a representative of the people. The party’s filing fees make it much harder for fresh candidates from economically underprivileged backgrounds to compete for local offices.
Take county councilor Olivia Bennett, who is mounting a long shot run for county executive. She explained in a letter distributed by the Black Political Empowerment Project that she didn’t even seek the party endorsement because the fee, plus the fee for her county council reelection, approaches the entire annual stipend she receives for sitting on County Council.
It’s exactly the kind of policy, a vestige from the days of party machines, that makes ordinary people distrust establishment politics and traditional party institutions. Further, it gives added ammunition and credibility to more extreme candidates, of the left and the right, who present themselves as populists without actually representing the views of many people at all.
The cost of the endorsement election process should be covered by the usual donations solicited by the county party, not by shaking down prospective candidates. This is how the Republican Committee of Allegheny County and both state parties handle it.
Some may argue that the fees are a way for candidates to prove their fundraising mettle. But the committee could achieve the same result by asking candidates to disclose their campaign war chests, and letting the committee members who vote on the endorsement decide who the strongest candidate is. And if that candidate needs help raising money, the county party would help them.
As it stands, it’s just old-fashioned pay-to-play politics — a system originally designed, even if current leaders no longer recognize this purpose, to keep power in the hands of party insiders. The fees keep out the kind of people whose personal understanding of life in the county makes them people needed in county government.
If the Allegheny County Democratic Party’s progressive turn is legitimate, it will abandon its endorsement fees before the next election cycle. The only thing it has to fear is democracy itself.