The Main — May 4: Five Things You Need to Know About PACs
You probably need to know more than five, actually
The rules apply starting now. As of May 1, the advertising period for the 2021 municipal elections across Alberta has officially opened. What this means is that changes to the elections law, which allow for third-party advertising, otherwise known as political-action committees, or PACs, are now in force.
The changes to the rules are intricate, extensive and confusing. Interest in PACs, on the other hand, is understandably high — though, much less so than past weeks given the heartbreaking COVID-19 numbers we’re now seeing.
As the rules come into play and the airwaves become fair game, here are five big things you need to know about the coming municipal vote:
Municipal candidates can’t be part of a PAC or use PAC materials
Here’s how Elections Alberta puts it (our emphasis):“Third party advertising is separate from any candidate’s campaign, and must be done independently from a candidate. Any advertisements or materials that are made and distributed by a candidate or under a candidate’s direction are part of the candidate’s campaign.”
Financial disclosure is only mandatory after the election
According to the Local Authorities Election Act (LAEA), candidates in municipal elections must disclose all of their campaign contributions and spending by March 1 — “immediately following the election.” This means a candidate can run for election, win, and then reveal who their backers were once securely elected.The rules are built to scale
Say you’re a PAC that wants to influence not just one municipal vote, but many. Don’t you worry — the LAEA has you covered. Rather than register with each individual jurisdiction, which would obviously be a pain, those PACs that intend to run advertisements in more than 10 jurisdictions just have to register with the new third-party registrar instead.
There are no limits
We think Elections Alberta captured this one disturbingly well (again, our emphasis):
“The LAEA allows for the establishment of a regulation that sets out the amount of money that may be spent by registered third party advertisers on election advertising during the election advertising period. There is no regulation in place for the purpose of the 2021 municipal election; therefore, spending on election advertising is not restricted.”
The old ways seem well and truly gone
In a recent Rage Against the Municipal community discussion, friend of the newsletter, Darren Krause — who’s the creator of LiveWire Calgary — noted that some candidates he’s talked to in Calgary say the rise of PACs has made it difficult for them to raise money to campaign.
Our read: A municipal candidate in the past would need to meet with donors and convince them that their views, values or vision aligned enough in order to garner a campaign contribution. In 2021, will it instead be PACs with big advertising dollars that push candidates to hew close to a potentially narrowly-focused or even partisan platform to get badly needed exposure in what strategists call the ‘air war’? Will these PACs even have municipal issues at their core as they engage in the municipal election campaign?
We’re about to find out.
Of course, earlier concerns — justified or not — about the United Conservative Party government’s interest in the outcome of municipal elections in October now seem far less likely. Municipal elections may be about the last thing a group experiencing the kind of internal strife the UCP is would worry about.