CLEAN MONEY/CLEAN ELECTIONS
by Cameron Satterthwaite
If you look at the numbers (50% spending
increase in one election cycle in races for some offices) or
the polls (run away campaign spending rates as first or second as a
major concern), you must agree that financing of elections needs
fixing. Well, Maine and Arizona have pioneered a solution. It's
called Clean Money/ Clean Elections or just Clean Elections. They've
tried it now for the last three election cycles for legislative and
state wide races, with spectacular success.
Here's the way it
works:
(1) First a candidate must declare that he/she wishes
to run as a clean candidate and in all ways is eligible for the
office.
(2) The candidate is allowed to raise for preliminary
expenses, a fixed, small amount from eligible voters in his/her
district or state in chunks of no more than $100.
(3) The
candidate, then, must collect from his/her district or state a
specified number of $5 "qualifying contributions" and
signatures.
(4) He/she must pledge, on penalty of being
disqualified for the office, to neither seek nor accept private money
including from his/her own pocket (The constitutionality of this
feature is currently being tested in Arizona.)
(5) The candidate
is then awarded an amount specified for the office from a public
Clean Elections fund. The source of this fund is defined in the Clean
Elections law.
(6) If the candidate is challenged by a free
spending non-clean candidate funds are made available for our
candidate to match the opponent to a fixed limit, 2 or 3 times th
specified amount.
It's as simple as that.
In Maine now
serving, 83% in the State Senate and 77% in the House (up from 77%
and 55% after the 2002 election) ran as Clean Elections
candidates. In Arizona, in 2004, 58% of House winners and 23% in
the Senate ran clean (up from 45% and 17% two years earlier) and, in
addition, in Arizona 10 of 11 state wide officials were elected
clean. Janet Napolitano, the sitting governor, who ran as a Clean
Elections candidate, is a strong supporter of Clean Elections. In
both states more minorities and women ran for office, there were more
contested races and committed and capable people who could not
stomach the fund raising hassle, threw their hats in the ring.
With
Maine and Arizona leading the way, momentum for Clean Elections is
building. In no less than twenty states and a few cities, including
California, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Jersey and Portland,
Oregon, action toward Clean Elections is stirring Clean Elections
procedures for some offices have been introduced, (in North Carolina,
judicial candidates have the option to run clean); bills are being
crafted and introduced in many states (in Illinois, a bill to make
the Clean Elections option available to candidates for the Supreme
Court has passed in the Senate and is awaiting action in the
House.)
Electoral reform with public funding is clearly the
march to the future and the Clean Elections idea is leading the way.
