September - November 2000

Buying Back Our “Dollar Democracy”

“Clean Money” Candidates in State Elections Test Viability of Full Public Financing

“Show me the money!” Heading into the homestretch, candidates at all levels are clamoring for cash, raising and spending as never before. Aware of the influence it buys, wealthy special interests are all too eager to supply it. Reform legislation languishes in Congress while corporations and wealthy individuals overwhelm our campaign finance system. Average people are priced out of participating in politics as effectively as if they had to pay a poll tax before voting. The result is a political process that only deepens voter cynicism and widens the chasm between the rich and the rest of us.

Meanwhile, largely unnoticed by the media, citizens across the country have been organizing a dramatic new approach to campaign financing – full public financing, the “Clean Money” solution. While it doesn’t attempt to match private money dollar for dollar, full public financing enables any qualifying candidate to run a competitive campaign unencumbered by ties to donors.

This year for the first time, some 200 candidates in 3 states -- Maine, Arizona and Vermont -- are running with full public financing. Voters are poised to enact similar initiatives this fall in Missouri and Oregon. Massachusetts’ Clean Election system will take effect in 2002. Broad coalitions working in forty states, from Connecticut and New Mexico to North Carolina and Wisconsin, are close to passing public financing systems for their own state elections. Where federal efforts fail, the states have become the leading laboratories of experimentation and incubators of innovation.

Democrat Al Gore says he favors full public financing for Congressional elections and Republican Sen. John McCain, co-sponsor of the leading reform legislation, says he is open to the idea. Sen. Russell Feingold says full public financing is his ultimate goal. National leaders like Sen. Paul Wellstone and Rep. John Tierney have proposed a similar approach for Congress.

Advocates contend that full public financing is the only comprehensive alternative to a system that is bankrupt, saying it will reduce the cost of campaigns, slow the money chase, and hold up under tough constitutional scrutiny. The concept has been endorsed by The New York Times, USA Today, The Boston Globe, Newsday, and St. Louis Post-Dispatch and is backed by two-thirds of the public in recent polls.

How will a Clean Money campaign finance system work in practice? How does it differ from other reform proposals? Even if it works in small states like Maine, will special interests prevent its passage at the national level?

Between September and November 2000, MMP conducted a major public education campaign on these issues. In all, we scheduled 266 radio and television interviews in 34 states. Of these, 48 were regionally, nationally or globally syndicated. Some 58 political leaders calling authorities were interviewed on such topics as political leaders calling for change, the current system and strategies for reform, and candidates running "clean."

Guest Speakers by Topic:

John Anderson, Visiting Professor, Nova-Southeastern University School of Law, Board Member, Center for Voting and Democracy

Doris Haddock, Campaign Finance Reform Advocate,

Carolyn Jefferson-Jenkins, President, League of Women Voters, Author

William McNary, President, US Action, Co-Director, Board Member, Citizen Action/Illinois, Health and Medicine Policy Research Group

Ellen Miller, Founder and Former President , Public Campaign

Nick Nyhart, Executive Director, Public Campaign

Larry Makinson, Former Executive Director, The Center for Responsive Politics

Micah Sifry, Senior Analyst , Public Campaign

John Bonifaz, Founder, Executive Director, National Voting Rights Institute, Staff Attorney

Jamin Raskin, Professor of Constitutional Law and Criminal Law - Washington College of Law, American University, Co-Director, Program on Law and Government

Sharlene Bozack, Executive Director, Clean Elections Institute

John Brautigam, Executive Director, Maine Citizen Leadership Fund, Board of Directors, National Institute on Money in State Politics

George Christie, Executive Director, Dirigo Alliance

David Donnelly, Executive Director, Mass Voters for Clean Elections

Janet Groat, Money in Politics Director, Northeast Action, MMP campaign: CLEAN MONEY IN POLITICS: BUYING BACK OUR "DOLLAR DEMOCRACY" September - November 2000

Dave Rapaport, Executive Director, Vermont Public Interest Research Group

Alison Smith, Co-Chair, Maine Citizens for Clean Election, Maine Citizen Leadership Fund

Michael Valder, President, Clean Elections Institute

Joan Bray, State Representative, Missouri House of Representatives , Steering Committee of Missouri Voters for Fair Elections

John Dellenback, Former (Republican) Oregon State Representative; former member, U.S. House of Representatives

Kathleen Logan, Political Director, Missouri Voters for Fair Elections

Maidi Terry, Campaign Manager, Oregon Political Accountability Campaign

Harriett Woods, Past President, National Women's Political Caucus, National Advisory Board of Public Campaign

Ken Alhadeff, Chairman, Elttaes Enterprises , President and CEO, Chairman, Senior Advisor, MiKen Properties, Inc, Kenneth and Marleen Alhadeff Charitable Foundation, Briazz

Arnold Haitt, Chairman, Stride Rite Foundation, Chairman, Business for Social Responsibility

Jay Blanchard, D-AZ, Arizona State Senate, Associate Professor, Psychology in Education, Arizona State University

Glenn Cummings, Executive Director, Portland Partnership, Clean Money Candidate, Maine House of Representatives

Susan Longley, D-District 11, Clean Election Candidate, Maine State Senate

Jolene Lovejoy, Clean Money Candidate, Maine House of Representatives

Jerrold Nadler, D-District 8, New York House of Representatives, Regional Democratic Whip, and is Co-Chair of the House Transit Caucus.

Miles Rapoport, President and CEO, Demos, Former Secretary of State, Connecticut

John Tierney, D-MA, U.S. House of Representatives

Paul Wellstone, U.S. Senator from Minnesota, U.S. Senate

Carrie Bolton, Field Organizer, Democracy South

John Buehrens, President, Minister, Unitarian Universalist Association, Board member, the National Parenting Association, the Foundation for Individual Responsibility and Social Trust

Juan Figueroa, President and General Counsel, Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund

Randall Merritt, Field Director, Georgia Rural Urban Summit, Vice President, USAction

Stephanie Moore, Director, Fannie Lou Hamer Project

Sonya Rosario, Lead Organizer for Campaign Finance Reform, United Vision for Idaho

David Saperstein, President and General Counsel, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

Susan Anderson, Outreach and Legislative Director, Public Campaign

Max Bartlett, Re-Visioning New Mexico

Ellen Bogard, Communications director, MO voters for fair elections

Margaret Brown, First Vice President, League of Women Voters

Roger Bybee, Communications Director, Winsconsin Citizen Action

Granny D, Campaign Finance Reform Advocate

Anita Davis

louise Dixey, Clean Money Candidate, Idaho House of Representative

Michael Ettlinger, Tax Policy Director, Citizens for Tax Justice, Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy

Humberto Fuentes, Executive director, Idaho Migrant Council

Wib Gulley, D-NC, U.S. Senate

Anne Henderson, Legislative Director, League of Women Voters of California

Dan Hendrickson, Florida Consumer Action Network

Arianna Huffington, Author, How To Overthrow The Government

Jim Knox, Executive Director, California Common Cause

Malia Lasu, Project Director of Boston VOTE

Charles Lewis, Executive Director, The Center for Public Integrity

Kevin looper, Senior Consultant, Oregon Political Accountability Campaign

Jeff Mandell, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

Stefanie Miller, Alliance for Democracy, Indiana

Charles Mitchell, Clean Money Candidate

Norma Paulus, Former Oregon Secretary of State, Republican

George Pillsbury, Director, Massachusetts Money & Politics Projects

Jim Reed, City Director, NAACP National Voter Fund IL

Samantha Sanchez, Co-Director, National Institute on Money in State Politics

Jo Seidita, Co-chair, California Clean Money Campaign

Steven Weiss, Communications Director, The Center for Responsive Politics

Alma Wheeler Smith, Michigan State Senator, District 18, Michigan State Senate