Cross-posted from Eye Daily.
Want to run for council? Start making friends with rich people. The four mainstream dailies are all reporting on the results of how much city councillors spent on their election campaigns last year, and once again, some councillors went above and beyond the campaign spending limits set for their ward. 
Despite a spending limit of $22,368 for his ward, Councillor Giorgio Mammolitti blew over $100,000 during his campaign. He’ll get away with it because, while the amount of money you can spend campaigning is limited, there’s no limit on how much you spend on fundraising.
“Asked if he had to spend $74,000 to raise $22,000, Mammoliti replied: ‘Essentially, yes. Essentially, you have to attract people to come out and donate,’†writes Jim Byers in the Toronto Star.
A good chunk of that money went into throwing a dinner party complete with bands and dancers for over a thousand people who paid at least $100 a head, which means they actually paid at least $25 a head thanks to the city’s election rebate program.
“Mammoliti’s bash was effectively subsidized by taxpayers,†argued The Globe and Mail’s Jeff Gray.
It’d be interesting to compare the campaign expenses of our current councillors with their opponents — did everyone who now has a seat on council outspend their opponents? You can look up the campaign spending stats yourself by visiting the city’s website, which has made it surprisingly easy to search for candidates’ financial statements. The only problem (a big problem if you want to find an answer to the question above) is that not everyone who ran has submitted their financial data. The list of financial statements now online show only two of Mammoliti’s challengers and both reported that they spent a paltry one hundred bucks. The three other people he ran against (all of which had actual campaign websites according to Who Runs This Town?) haven’t filed any figures as of yet.
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