County Council gutted a campaign finance fund. Critics call a fix ‘too late.’

The Anne Arundel County Council is working on the fly to find ways to fund its new public campaign finance system.
But members and allies of the bipartisan commission overseeing the system say it’s too late for any fix to be apolitical.
Council Chair Julie Hummer, a Laurel Democrat, introduced a bill in July that would create a mechanism to add funds outside the regular budget cycle. At the bill’s first public hearing Monday, opponents to the legislation decried the omission of one factor they say is essential: the entirety of the $1.5 million the Public Campaign Financing System Commission requested in the fiscal 2026 budget.
“The core problem is: It’s too late,” said Rebecca Forte, a former member of the financing commission who stepped down in June. “No bill introduced after June’s vote will ever be able to be apolitical because the choice to ignore the apolitical-math of the commission was in and of itself already a political act.”
The public campaign financing system is still in its infancy — the council approved the system in 2023, and the upcoming election cycle will be its first in use.
The system is available to both county executive and County Council candidates. Thus far, Democratic county executive candidate James Kitchin, the special assistant to term-limited County Executive Steuart Pittman, will be the first to test the system.
But public campaign financing has already been in use in other jurisdictions. Most notably, Republican Larry Hogan used the state’s small donor system to win his first gubernatorial election in 2014.
The system is intended to remove big-money interests by matching small-dollar donations with county government funding. In Anne Arundel, it has had its share of controversy.
Amid the flurry of dealmaking during the Anne Arundel County Council’s budget deliberations in June, $1.25 million was taken from Pittman’s request for the public campaign financing system and put into schools, public safety and libraries.
The bipartisan Public Campaign Financing System Commission appointed by the council had previously unanimously recommended that $1.5 million be set aside, bringing the system’s total funding to $2.5 million. Pittman, who endorsed Kitchin in the race, relayed that recommendation in his proposed budget.
But the council’s Republican members, on June 9, introduced an amendment reducing the $1.5 million request for the program to $250,000.
Then-Committee Chair Nadine Chien stepped down from her leadership position, and Forte resigned after the vote.
In her resignation letter, Forte questioned whether the council could add funds later in the campaign season without any decision being politically motivated. She’s still advocating for the system to ensure candidates with little name recognition or lack of funding stand a chance.
“Unfortunately, no amount of the newly demanded redundant audit, no amount of codified math problems, reduplicated work of the commission, newly added deadlines or a thesaurus of ways to say that a candidate expressed interest solve the core problem,” Forte said.
The bill also seeks to establish a deadline to file a notice of intent to participate in the public campaign financing fund, seeks to establish a delivery window for checks and determines the threshold for the county controller to certify sufficient fund balance, among other things.
“The program isn’t broken,” Kitchin said in a statement. “What’s broken is the Council’s decision in June to ignore the Public Campaign Financing Commission’s funding recommendation. That choice sent the wrong message to residents and potential candidates, signaling that the Council is willing to undercut efforts to keep big money and corporate interests out of our elections.”
Kitchin added that the bill doesn’t provide a clear, immediate way to fully fund the program to the Commission’s standards. Instead, it grants permission to add funds only after the balance has been deemed insufficient — a reality he says discourages new candidates from using the program and undermines its purpose.
During Monday’s hearing, the council approved five of six amendments presented by Pittman. Pete Smith, a Severn Democrat representing District 1, also highlighted the fact that a request to supplement the fund must come from the county executive — an effort to inform the public “where to put pressure.”
Lisa Rodvien, an Annapolis Democrat representing District 6, raised concerns with an amendment that established that a candidate wishing to use the system must indicate to the State Board of Elections that they will seek public campaign financing.
“The amount that’s in the fund is public,” Rodvien said. “If there’s not enough money in the fund right at this second, how many candidates are going to be willing to take the leap of faith?”
Rodvien added that she was considering introducing a charter amendment that would make the council surrender its fiscal authority to the public financing commission in regard to the system.
The bill will be heard as amended again on Oct. 6.
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