Wednesday's meeting saw the entire committee — which also includes Abe McGull, Callie Carroll, and Heather Hardinger — express support for the law, which Hosmer has said is necessary to prevent the appearance of "impropriety" in local government.
The only real sticking point was implementation — McGull, Carroll and Hardinger were all reticent to create more roadblocks to running for Springfield city council, a volunteer position which all three said was complicated to run for as is.
"The point of this [rule] is to create more opportunity for folks to run, create campaign committees, and be elected to offices locally…I’m not sure if creating additional steps in the process is necessary," said Hardinger.
Throughout the meeting, there was some back-and-forth over what role the Missouri Ethics Commission would play in reporting, ethics, and enforcement. Ultimately, implementing a campaign contribution limit would seem to necessitate creating a commission (potentially paid, potentially volunteer) for enforcing said limit, but the details were unclear all around.
Also of note was the limits of such a campaign finance ordinance. City attorney Jordan Paul noted in a presentation that, according to constitutional case law, council can limit individual contributions specifically to prevent open quid pro quo. They cannot, however, limit contributions from political action committees, known as PACs (if any of this sounds familiar, well, Paul mentioned Citizens United by name during the presentation).
Throughout the meeting, members also floated the idea of term limits for city council members, as well as changing city council to a paid position to lower the financial barrier for entry. Both would require alterations to the city charter.
The next Plans and Policies meeting is on December 10. In the meantime, city staff and committee members will review the enforcement process of similarly-sized "benchmark cities" who also have contribution limits.