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.