New Jersey adopts Public Campaign Finance
The New Jersey Senate voted 27 – 3 to renew the state’s Clean Elections pilot project for another year. The bill, which easily passed in the state Assembly, will next go to Governor John Corzine (D), who is expected to sign it when it reaches his desk.
Meanwhile Maryland lawmakers are close to voting on legislation that would bring Clean Elections to their state legislative races, and Assistant Senate Majority Leader Richard Durbin (D-IL) set to introduce a bipartisan Fair Elections bill in the Senate which would bring a Clean Elections-style system to Congress.
Under Clean Elections, candidates who collect a set number of small dollar qualifying contributions agree to strict spending limits, and refuse further private money, receive public funds to run a competitive campaign. Once in office, these Clean Elections elected officials will be accountable only to the voters who elected them — not big money campaign donors.
Public Campaign Action Fund
Democracy 21
It is nice to know that if you are disappointed by the excessive influence of special interests in government there is something you can do about it. I can’t think of another policy change that can have as much impact on promoting open minded pragmatic deliberation by those we elect. If we can figure out how to control third party spending on campaigns we may be close to getting the objective government we want and deserve.
19 Responses to “New Jersey adopts Public Campaign Finance”
I can’t think of another program that would basically eliminate the idea that elections have meaning. Limiting money gives all of the power to the established media (heavily Democratic) and to NGO’s (again, heavily Democratic). While the middle class is at work, the professional activist will be given a tremendous ability to affect elections. The far left side of the Democratic Party benefits and the moderate and just right of center are hammer by such a proposal
My guess is that if Maryland adopts such a proposal that the last few Republicans will be eliminate from the state House and Senate. Public financing just means that the Democratic Primary will be the only meaningful election in most of the United States.
I do see how giving far left NGO’s most of political power in the United States will somehow do away with special interest politics.
Being very familiar with the longstanding culture of political corruption in New Jersey, the renewal of the Clean Elections pilot project is regretably laughable and is akin to holding back the ocean with a tea spoon.
Ha ha. Shaun beat me to the punch…
superdestroyer – so glad the liberally controlled media has successfully changed Arizona, which has had clean elections since 2000, to a bleeding liberal democratic state – 4 democrats and 4 republicans in the house, 2 republican senators and a democratic governor. Republicans lead the state senate 18-12, and lead the state house 39-21. In my mind, solid proof that the media is controlled by the vast left wing conspiracy and that the only people capable of raising money in small increments require extreme left wing ngo’s
shaun and idiosyncrat – dying to hear YOUR plans for cleaning up NJ politics
Jeff,
If you look at who is supporting public financing, they are all on the left. Public financing is not about achieving the best but about giving the left a huge advantage. Look at the links about public financing. They are leftist sites where all the complaints are about Republican politicians and are all organized and run by people who come from the leftside of political spectrum.
The long term prospects of public financing is total domination by the left. If anyone on the left thought that the right would benefit at all, they would be against it.
NJ politics will never be cleaned up. The state has a high number of mafiosa and gets a lot of revenue from gambling in Atlantic City. But, hey, Nevada politics has never been too tidy either. Any state where there’s a concentration of easy money and organized crime is going to be resistant to good government.
This is depressing. Are you naysayers saying that it’s better to spend millions on negative campaign ads?
Are you saying that votes should be, in essence, bought?
If those are your arguments, I’ll vote for whatever you’re against.
Already, we get as much justice as we can buy via the caliber of lawyer we can afford.
Is everything for sale?
PS
What’s really depressing is that all the arguments are about which party would have the advantage under what system.
I would hope that people would think about what’s best for the country.
This vast left wing conspiracy nonsense is really tiresome.
Maybe there is more Democratic funding for these initiatives, because more Democrats care about upgrading our political system.
Talk about conspiracy theories!
SD- Yes the left has always fought against the lopsided influence of moneyed interests upon elections. If they did not, we’d have a fusion of elites and corporate interests running the government. Actually, that’s pretty close to what we have now! If you look at most of the legislation that has passed since 2000, it favors those interests over those of the working or middle class.
Consumer interests- the rights of the little guy to stand up against the power of business has always been viewed as lefty politics as well. But without consumer law we’d have unsafe products and unsanitary business practices.
It does seem that most of the organizations promoting public finance of elections are left leaning.
But circumstances do change. The prime movers behind non-partisan redistricting reform in California are Republicans who, as the minority, would like a more level playing field.
It seems to me that anyone who sincerely prefers an open, balanced, pragmatic, objective, honorable government would support any ways to minimize the influence of special interests.
That’s exactly why you don’t see most right-wing organizations favoring it. Lets face it-they prefer a stacked deck as you can see from the current furor over the US attorney firings. They ceased to pretend to care about any semblance of fairness in the Clinton years.
thanks domajot – getting a little tired of the ‘all politicians are crooks and liars’ meme. if it’s that bad, then i guess we just wait for the revolution and see what happens then. i still happen to believe in democracy and its power to balance people’s selfishness with people’s desire to make a better world.
superdestroyer – according to http://www.campaignmoney.org/polling
only 16% oppose public financing
now, you may say this a skewed poll, but it still indicates that there are likely more the 50% who do not oppose it – that indicates that a majority would like to give it a shot
there’s also league of women voters – but maybe they’re too leftist for you as well
i like the idea that what we do is continue to push the system towards accountability to individuals, and that we continue to strive to clean up politics. it will always be a little dirty, it will never be perfect, but it seems to be the best system we’ve come up with so far, and part of the power of the system is the ability to change it
Actually, I agree with Jeff. I did not mean by my comments (which were poorly worded and sounded uberpartisan) that only the left cares about this issue.There are many centrists, moderate Republicans and even conservatives(many on this site!) who care about it as well. But there is alot of misinformation that makes people think that it is just a lefty cause. But you don’t have to be a socialist or a communist to care about good government and maximum participation in that government. Its something we should all care about as citizens.
The idea that public financing of campaigns will improve the performance of politicians is naive and laughable. What public financing of campaigns is desgined to do is put a large number of naderites/Indymedia/Moveon.org types into public office. Whether that is good or bad is a matter of opinion but there is no indication that the end result will be any better than what we have now.
I would love for someone to explain to me how such a system would work without making the Democratic Primary the only relavent election. I just do not see how giving labor unions, government employees, professional leftist activist, and NGO’s all of the advantages will serve any good purpose other than for those on the left who want to eliminate all political parties/movements except their own. If you could find some on the right who could support the idea and could explain their support then the proposal may have merit. But when the only people campaigning for it are professional activist from the left, we should all be very skeptical.
SD, don’t get stuck in the us-vs-them game.
In any system we set up, there will always be conservative and liberal voices. Republican’s aren’t stupid, they might loose the next election or the next two because of institutional inertia, but they will adapt.
Church outreach programs already seems very much in line with public financing, and they certainly lean right. Also, what’s to stop republicans from starting their own NGOs? And what will stop them from buying media outlets?
I guess I’ll agree, that in the short term the left wins, but the important point we should all be focusing on is that in the long term, everyone wins.
Oh, I wanted to ask a question too. How does this affect non-mainstream parties? At first glance it would seem like a jackpot for smaller parties, who can manage that small contribution threshold and get the same amount of public money as the big boys…. is there some sneaky provision to limit this only the D’s and R’s?
well SD, this naive and laughable idea i believe in is based in the quaint and humorous notion of looking at the states that have also believed in the naive and laughable idea and have seen the silly and inconsequential reality that the “naderites/Indymedia/Moveon.org types” have not taken over their great states.
however, since i am the one who holds to the naive and laughable ideas, i’m afraid it’s up to those of you who are wise and serious to PROVE that you are correct. i’m fairly certain you can look at what has happened in Arizona and find many examples of the grand “naderites/Indymedia/Moveon.org” conspiracy.
and i’m not certain how many would agree with calling the league of women voters “professional activist from the left”, but i’m sure it’s just another naive and laughable opinion of mine
oh, and let me just add George Voinovich to the list of professional activist from the left that hold this naive and laughable idea – oh, wait – ‘the hill’ is just another arm of the left wing conspiracy vying to eliminate all ideas but their own
Now Arlen Specter has joined the chorus to control the influence of money:
Good news about Specter and Durbin.
They at least seem to get that this should not be about political parties,
It should be about reducing the influence of powerful and moneyed special interest groups.
I dream about what the elected could be doing during the time they spend now soliciting campaign funds.