The Road to Clean Elections

The route to taking America BACK.

By Bryan Zepp Jamieson

04/17/02

http://zeppscommentaries/Politics/trtce.htm

A buddy of mine put it perfectly: "I haven’t been this excited – excited in a good way – about politics since December 2000."

I was at a meeting of the local Democratic party, and we had just been treated to a video and a report on "The Road to Clean Elections" (http://www.publicampaign.org/TRTCE/) a new approach to campaign financing that has met with spectacular success in the states where it has been implemented.

The plan directly addresses America’s biggest single problem. A candidate for public office presently has two routes he can take in order to mount a viable campaign. He can either raise money by making the rounds of the rubber chicken circuit, spending 20 or 30 hours a week begging money from the well-heeled, special interests and outside interests, or if he is wealthy enough, he can self finance.

In either event, you end up with a candidate who is either rapidly running up a list of IOUs to anyone who thinks it might be nice to control an elected official and has the money to do so, or you get yet another dilettante who thinks it’s worth spending a few million he doesn’t need either because he wants more power, or he just wants to rig the laws to feather his nest further.

A huge majority of Americans know that, and that’s the main reason why over half of them sat at home in the closest and most vital Presidential campaign America had seen in 40 years.

The Road to Clean Elections plan takes on this problem squarely, and in the first few elections in states where it passed, the results are even better than its supporters hoped for.

The plan is simplicity itself. When a candidate files to run for public office, a third option is offered. The Candidate can elect to qualify for public funds, provided the candidate accepts no private funds from any party.

To qualify, the candidate must show that he or she isn’t just a flake looking for a public handout. The candidate must get the signatures of x% of the registered voters in the district represented by the office sought (usually between ½ and 1 percent of voters) and get minor donations to show that the would be candidate convinced an even smaller percentage of the voters that they should take this candidate seriously. The amounts, which need to be solicited from between 1/100th of one percent and 1/10th of one percent, range from 50 cents to $50, depending on the state. In the two states covered in the Road to Clean Elections video, Arizona and Maine, the amount was $5.00. If you were running for a district that had one hundred thousand voters, you might need to get one thousand signatures, and checks of $5 each from 100 voters. Assuming you have any perceptible ability to do the job, those are not major hurdles.

Upon accomplishing this, the candidate receives $X in public funding, an amount tied directly to the average cost of a campaign for that office in the last election. If the average candidate spent $300,000 for that office in 2000, then a "clean" candidate would get $300,000 in funds to spend on campaigning in a hypothetical 2002 election.

The results have been stunning so far. Four states have implemented the new campaign finance law, and in two, it has been upheld by the courts. (It is voluntary; if a candidate wishes to take special interest money or self finance, he can; and even the libertarians have a tough time convincing themselves that financing campaign debates and ads is something outside of the public interest). The other two states have at least partial implementations.

The two that have it, Maine and Arizona, showed astonishing results. According to the folks at Publicampaign.org, in Maine, 116 out of 352 candidates opted for the public financing route. While more Democrats than Republicans so opted, the division wasn’t as great as you might think: 63-37. Nearly a third of the candidates were incumbents.

Over half (54%) of "clean" candidates won. This included a startling number of "clean" opponents who took on incumbents. Indeed in races with "clean" candidates running, incumbents who were not "clean" lost at a rate nearly eight times the national average. Tired of seeing entrenched members of the legislature, but not willing to preempt the right of the voters to choose with term limits? Here’s something that massively helps to sweep out the "bums", and does so in a way that would gladden the hearts of the Founders and all who love the Constitution.

In Arizona, as in Maine, there were a lot more candidates for public office, and a lot less uncontested races. "Clean" candidates outperformed the regular kind there, too.

Voter enthusiasm for the new law was high, getting approval ratings ranging from 80% to 88%. However, in the four states where it has passed, the state legislatures uniformly rejected it. It was passed only because of the voter initiative process. Hardly a surprise. Special interests wanted to maintain their unwonted privilege, and got word out to their captive public officials that if they wanted generous funding next year, they better oppose "Clean Election" laws. But the voters weren’t fooled.

Most of the systems have a contingency in the event of a "Huffington." Michael Huffington (the former Mr. Arianna Huffington) was a self-financed flake who used his millions to buy a House seat in Santa Barbara, California, and after amassing two years’ experience in pissing off his constituents through a policy of inept neglect, decided he was ready for "the show" and spent $30 million plus of his own money in trying to unseat incumbent Dianne Feinstein, and very nearly succeeded. Self-financed candidates do surprisingly poorly, partly because most voters realize that self-financed just means he answers to one special interest instead of many. They try anyway (California has another one trying this year, for governor). In a publicly funded campaign state, if a self-financed type shows up, matching funds can be made available for up to double the set limit. If you can’t win with twice what the previous winner won with, you probably don’t deserve to win.

Clean candidates have one huge advantage that money cannot buy. They can stand in front of the voters and proclaim, "I am not a whore. I will campaign for clean air and good schools, and I will mean it, because I will never be in a position where the lobbyist from Monsanto is urging me not to support a particulate-emissions bill, and I have to think about that, because Monsanto donated $100,000 in soft funds last year, and I don’t think I can win next year without them. I will never have to change my mind on school curriculum because my opponent is outspending me 10-to-1 with money from the school voucher crowd. I will have time to consider the legislation I will be voting on, because I won’t be out 20 or 30 hours a week average, fund raising. I will never have to explain to voters why I voted for tobacco subsidies in a district that grows no tobacco. I am not a whore."

No amount of campaign spending from special interests can overcome that.

The Clean Elections movement is being fought tooth and nail by special interests, for obvious reasons. As noted, no state legislature has passed it, although the voters certainly have! It’s still being wrangled in the courts, by interests prepared to spend billions if that’s what it takes to maintain their control over America.

The media isn’t giving it much coverage, despite the fact that it’s the fastest-growing movement in America and is already in four states and being pushed for voter initiatives in 34 more. But then, not only is the media owned outright by some of the same corporations who are the biggest financial backers of the present corrupt system, but most of that special interest money flows right back into that same media, since the biggest single expense in a campaign is advertising. You’ve heard of robbing Peter to pay Paul? This is a case of Peter bribing Paul to have the money to afford Peter’s services! No wonder the system is so messed up!

If you like the sound of this, and if you are a member of a political party, find out when and where they meet, and go to the meeting, and find out if they are involved in Clean Campaign laws. Yes, this includes Republicans; a lot of them are just as tired of this grotesque parody of a democratic system as the rest of us are. Greens, Libertarians, and other independents will want to join in; this system makes a plausible candidacy by a third party much easier to attain.

In the meantime, go to The Clean Campaign Webpage, read what they have to say, and order the videotape. It’s only $5, and with no copyright, you are encouraged to make as many copies as you want. For $5, you get a videotape. For $5, clean state voters got public elected officials they could respect and trust. It’s a pretty good deal.

Here in California, we’re working to get this on the 2004 ballot. Nearly all other states have similar movements. It may well be our last, best hope to bring a free and prosperous democracy back. Get out, and get involved.

It’s your chance to get a representative who can look you right in the eye and say, "I am not a whore."

If you love your country, this one is worth your time and effort.