Blaine Griffin has started spending money to help allies hold on to their Cleveland City Council seats.
The council president’s political action committee, the Council Leadership Fund, sent out mailers recently backing incumbents Richard Starr, Danny Kelly and Kevin Conwell. All three council members face primary opponents who are backed by progressive groups.
Griffin is also lining up billboards and digital ads for his candidates, he said. He’ll throw his support behind more candidates soon, he said. The council president said he wants to raise around $500,000 for this year’s campaign.
“I’m investing in good government,” Griffin said in a phone interview Tuesday. “All of these folks that have received my endorsement have been people who have been team players, people that I’ve seen work very hard, and have a demonstrable commitment not only to Cleveland but to their constituents.”
A Council Leadership Fund billboard supporting Council Member Stephanie Howse-Jones in Ward 8, the Hough neighborhood, is expected to go up soon. Griffin is also backing incumbent Anthony Hairston against Michael Polensek, another incumbent whom the council president has considered an ally.
While unopposed in Ward 6, Griffin will need support from colleagues if he wants to be reelected as council president. It will take a majority of the new 15-member council, or eight votes, to secure the presidency.
In Ward 9, which covers the Glenville neighborhood, Conwell is up against Alana Belle and Tony Evans Jr. On the West Side, Kelly faces Tanmay Shah and Andrew DeFratis.
Starr is running against Rebecca Maurer, another incumbent council member whose home was drawn into the new Ward 5. The other candidate in the three-way primary race is Beverly Owens-Jackson, an SEIU 1199 member.
Maurer, Shah and Belle have the backing of the Working Families Party, a national progressive political party, and the local progressive spending group A Better Cleveland for All.
Griffin fields a team
Griffin said he is backing Starr because the Ward 5 council member is a “team player” whose platform aligns with his own. The council president also nodded to the “legacy of strong African American politics” in the Central neighborhood, which produced longtime Mayor Frank Jackson and the late council member Lonnie Burten.
Although Maurer and Griffin clashed over the redistricting process, the council president said he still has a good working relationship with her. But his relationship with Starr is better, he said.
Griffin said his campaign will communicate that the candidates he’s backing have helped him as a council president, too. The mailers include small headshots of Griffin, noting that the candidates have his endorsement.
“We’re going to make it clear whose team they’re a part of,” he said.
The council president is running the campaign as an independent expenditure effort, meaning he is spending money on candidates’ behalf rather than giving the money to them directly. He said that he is not coordinating with the candidates. They’re also raising their own campaign money.
Council’s fund had $244,000 on hand at the end of May, according to the latest available financial disclosure with the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections.
Council presidents have long used a PAC to help allies, often looking to businesses, law firms and labor unions for money. Critics of the leadership fund say it gives incumbents an unfair advantage. But other PACs, beyond the council leadership fund, are also bringing in dollars to support their own endorsed candidates, Griffin said.
“A lot of the other people that are running are raising money, too,” he said. “So this whole notion that we’re not supposed to raise money is kind of absurd.”