Public Campaign Finance Roundup

Here are a few recent items related to Campaign Finance Reform

From Public Campaign Action Fund:

Connecticut

A new survey in Connecticut shows that experienced candidates are likely to use the state’s new Clean Elections law this year in their races. Eighty-six percent of incumbents and 76 percent of returning 2006 candidates say they will participate, or are inclined to participate, in the Clean Elections full public financing program. For purposes of comparison, the first year that Clean Elections was available in Maine, one third of candidates for the House and Senate participated while in Arizona 20 percent of Senate candidates and 28 percent of House candidates used the system.

Federal Election Commission Hiatus

Sen. McConnell has been instrumental in de-fanging the U.S. Federal Election Commission (FEC), the lone regulatory body standing between us and the Wild West of campaign fundraising. The FEC is currently short two commissioners, without which the agency is powerless to issue binding rulings on campaign finance questions and complaints. Just what you want in an election year that promises to be the most expensive in history! McConnell, along with President Bush, is attempting to strong-arm the nomination of Hans von Spakovsky for one of the open seats. Von Spakovsky has drawn criticism from ethics watchdogs and voting rights organizations for his support of partisan redistricting proposals and voter suppression schemes in the South.

If Its Broke – Fix It

I am delighted when leaders in the MSM make the effort to point out that our election system is broken as did Richard Cohen in the Washington Post: No Small Change

…Break the system we now have, in which every two years most members of Congress have to raise millions of dollars to win reelection, in which senators must do the same every six years and presidential candidates every four. Institute the public funding of elections, an idea whose time has surely come…

Most of the Democratic presidential candidates…support such a concept….But lobbyists are not the problem. The problem is the need for them.

The average winner of a congressional race in 2006 spent $1.3 million. The average Senate winner spent $9.6 million. Where do you think much of this money came from? Lobbyists. What do you think members of Congress must start doing the day after their election? Raising money. This is why Congress is often in session only three days a week and why holidays have been stretched into virtual recesses. Fundraising, fundraising, fundraising.

A lobbyist I know tells me that at the height of the fundraising season, he gets invited to 50 or 60 events per week. Sometimes, when he goes up to Capitol Hill, he might look across a room and accidentally make eye contact with a congressman or a senator. Soon an e-mail will arrive: A little money, please. It’s worse than a singles bar.

…Even special interests have a right to be heard. But not a greater right than you or I. If elections were publicly funded, members of Congress would not be reliant on special interests for money to campaign…