EL PASO, Texas ( KTSM ) – The Community First Coalition (CFC), a nonpartisan network of over 25 organizations, voiced its concerns about the dangers of big money in local politics in a press conference held Monday morning, Nov. 4 in front of the El Paso County Courthouse.
Retired political science professor and CFC founder, Kathleen Staudt, said four of the eight mayoral candidates have raised considerable amounts of money in this election — some of them through loans to themselves. But one of them has raised almost $1 million, which is twice as much as what previous mayoral candidates have done.
Staudt, along with Oscar Martinez and Carmen Rodriguez, also founders of CFC, analyzed big donors and the benefits gained in the book titled “Who Rules El Paso? Private Gain, Public Policy, and the Community Interest” (2020).
According to the book, “Donations for one of the previous mayors totaled $400,000, a third of which came from a small number of wealthy donors who invested large amounts not only in his election but also in some council representatives’ campaigns, heavily dependent on a smaller number of big donors rather than on a larger cross-section of people making smaller donations.”