In Boston, candidates for City Council have been filing monthly or bi-weekly campaign-finance reports since January, showing in great detail how much money they raised from whom and how it was spent. The data provide insight into the political game and can prompt civic discussion about the elections, the candidates, and their funders. But in Baltimore, voters will only have access to such details come mid-August.

Under Maryland’s campaign-finance laws, candidates do not report their fundraising and expenses between the 2010 end-of-year report, due in mid-January, and the first filing before the Sept. 13 primary, which is due on Aug. 16. That’s eight and half months of political transactions conducted outside of public view during a crucial period of fundraising in the races for mayor, City Council president, comptroller, and 14 Council districts.

The first pre-primary report unleashes an overwhelming torrent of campaign-finance information, followed by another flood on Sept. 2, when the second pre-primary report is due. This means the public has only a few weeks to digest how candidates raised and spent money before the primary is held—and, in a city where Democrats make up about 80 percent of the registered voters, the primary is all but certain to pick the city’s elected leaders for the next four years.

While campaign-finance reform in Maryland was a talking point this year, with the January release of a 122-page report by Attorney General Douglas Gansler’s Advisory Committee on Campaign Finance, none of its 25 recommendations addresses the timeliness of reporting.

Susan Wichmann, the executive director of Common Cause Maryland, a good-government nonprofit, says her group “certainly has advocated for more frequent and transparent reporting of political contributions.” She points out that a possible forum for exploring more frequent reporting—especially during election years—is Maryland’s new Commission to Study Campaign Finance Law, which was created this year by the General Assembly and is expected to issue its final recommendations at the end of 2012.

As things stand, though, the old campaign-finance data about Baltimore City’s electoral contenders still have something to offer. They can be used to tease out how much it may cost to win a given race, based on the numbers from prior elections. And, for the minority of candidates whose committees were formed prior to the beginning of this year—incumbents, for the most part—they can be used to determine their biggest early backers. What follows is a race-by-race analysis, based on available online data reported to the Maryland State Board of Elections. The candidates listed are Democrats who filed for office as of June 30, before the July 6 filing deadline, so more candidates may end up running—and some could drop out by the July 15 withdrawal deadline.

Mayor

In 1999, then-City Councilmember Martin O’Malley won a 17-way Democratic primary for an open seat, spending a little more than $1 million, or about $16.60 per vote, in the year leading up to the vote. In his five-way race for re-election in 2003, O’Malley spent just under $1.8 million, about $30 per vote. And in 2007, Sheila Dixon won the eight-way primary, running as an incumbent appointed to serve out the unfinished term of Martin O’Malley, who won the Maryland governor’s race in 2006. During the year leading up to the primary, Dixon spent nearly $2 million campaigning, or about $36.50 per vote.

If the inflationary trend continues, this year’s winner in the mayor’s race can expect to spend more than $2 million and close to $40 per vote.

At the end of 2010, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake was well on her way to reaching the $2 million mark, with a little more than $840,000 in the bank. Her top donors in 2010 were from Ohio: developers Jeffrey Woda and David Cooper of the Woda Group LLC, and their wives, who gave $4,000 each, for a total of $16,000. The New York political action fund of 1199 SEIU, a healthcare-workers union, ponied up $6,000.

The first runner-up in the mayoral contenders’ 2010 money game is state Sen. Catherine Pugh (D-40th District), who had more than a quarter-million dollars banked. Her top 2010 backers were two related trial-lawyers groups, the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association PAC ($5,500) and the Maryland Association for Justice ($5,500); the public-employees union AFSCME Local 1885 ($4,000); and Mahogany, Inc. ($3,000), a Baltimore construction firm.

Next up is Otis Rolley, the city’s former director of Planning, who had about $107,000 on hand at the end of last year. His biggest 2010 backers were former Maryland Secretary of Housing and Community Development Victorio L. Hoskins and his wife, who each gave $4,000, and developers James and Terry Rubenstein of Owings Mills, who spent $6,550 throwing him a fundraiser.

City Councilmember Carl Stokes (D-12th District) had just under $15,000 on hand at the end of 2010, but also carried $38,500 in debt, so he’s got his fundraising work cut out for him. His top donors then were M. Luis Construction Co. ($1,000) and Mahogany, Inc. ($1,000).

The Four Bears Slate, the campaign committee of Clerk of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, Frank Conaway Sr., reported a negative balance of more than $6,000 at the end of 2010.

Wilton Wilson, a nurse, filed an affidavit of non-activity last year, meaning he hadn’t raised or spent more than $1,000.

Joseph T. “Jody” Landers III, a former City Councilmember who recently resigned from his long-time job as executive vice president of the Greater Baltimore Board of Realtors to run for mayor, formed his campaign committee this year. It will file its first report in August.

City Council President

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