The Real Silver Bullet: Clean Elections

Scratch any aspect of the inability of Congress to pass popular progressive legislation and you'll find the same cesspool: corporate campaign cash.

As long as members of Congress are dependent on big money to win elections, they will always put the needs and desires of giant corporations and the wealthy ahead of their constituents.

It's why - the only reason why - we don't have single-payer healthcare, or widespread public transportation, or massive investment in renewable energy, or a public school system that gets more money than the Pentagon does, or millions of drug treatment beds, or a living minimum wage, or tax policy that forces corporations and the rich to pay their fair share.

Yes, Barack Obama raised hundreds of millions of dollars from small donations from ordinary people over the Internet. But he raised hundreds of millions more from Wall Street, Big Pharma, and defense contractors, all of whom are now or anticipating benfiting from President Obama's non-progressive decisions on the financial bailout, health care non-reform, and escalating the losing war in Afghanistan.

Corporate money dirties our elections. We need clean elections. But how? Believe it or not, it's easier than you think.

The Blue America PAC is going to be using support of the Fair Election Now Act (Dick Durbin's S. 752 and John Larson's H.R. 1826) to help us decide on endorsements going forward. Basically, the bills provide public money for campaigns of candidates who choose to participate and qualify to, through a system of matching funds. In order for a House candidate to qualify for public money, he/she must raise $50,000 in small contributions from 1,500 people in their home state. They are not restricted to people living in their CD. The maximum contribution per donor is $100.

Upon qualifying, the candidate is given a lump sum for the primary campaign. The candidate can then raise addition contributions, up to $100 per donor, which are matched 4 to 1 by the program. That is, a $100 contribution turns into $500 of campaign money. If the candidate wins the primary, they can again collect small contributions that are again matched 4 to 1 for use in the general election.

Additionally, the candidate will receive vouchers for television/radio air time during the general election (but not the primary). PACs and out-of-state contributors are also limited to $100 contributions but their contributions are not matched. All together, a single individual can make up to three $100 contributions during the cycle. The qualifying requirements for Senate candidates are higher adjusted to reflect variations in state populations.

The bills' co-sponsors are listed on the Fair Elections Now website and, ideologically the list spans everything from conservative Republicans (there are two, Walter Jones and Todd Platts) to mangy Blue Dogs like Mike Arcuri, Jim Cooper and Jane Harmon to a long list including most real progressives in Congress, from Alan Grayson, Jan Schakowsky, Donna Edwards and Raul Grijalva to Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich, Keith Ellison and Marcy Kaptur. House members running for Senate, Joe Sestak, Paul Hodes and Mike Capuano have signed on as co-sponsors. And 5 senators up for re-election in 2010 are also co-sponsors: Barbara Boxer, Russ Feingold, Chris Dodd, Kirsten Gillibrand and Arlen Specter.

In Salon, Nate Frentz explains how only clean elections can save the young voters who made the 2008 Democratic victory possible.

Clean elections is actually an old idea, developed and promoted by various good-government groups, including The Working Group on Electoral Democracy.

But no one has been banging the drum for clean elections as the only way to save American Democracy longer and harder than Texas populist Jim Hightower.

In April 2004, he wrote this:

Some say that trying to reform America's money-corrupted political process is as futile as trying to teach table manners to a hog — the effort only wears you out and annoys the hog.

But citizens in Maine and Arizona have already passed grassroots initiatives providing for dramatic reform—the public financing of elections.

Candidates of any party can finance both their primary and general-election campaigns with public funds, provided they forgo taking special-interest money. Not only does this help get corrupt money out of the process, but it also means a regular person can run for office again.

Maine and Arizona have run two election cycles under clean-money laws, and the results would warm the cockles of the coldest cynic's heart:

There have been more challengers to incumbents than ever before, with more women, Latinos, and Native Americans running and winning—and half of the challengers using the clean-money option say they would not have run without it.

Because this system creates more choices, offering fresh faces and new ideas, voter turnout is ratcheting upward.

And—here's the big one—public financing is working: 59 percent of Maine's legislators and 36 percent of those in Arizona have now been elected without taking any tainted money, and publicly funded candidates in Arizona last year won seven of nine statewide offices, including the governor and the attorney general.

If you want clean elections, check out Public Campaign.