Dec '00 / Jan 2001

A Gift Given, A Gift Received: Water
to Iraq
By Edilith Eckart

Election Analysis Progressive
Directions?
By Bill Thomson

Modernizing Our Electoral Rules &
Practices
By Rob Richie

Democracy 101
By Blair Bobier

Clean Money: Campaign Finance
Reform
By John Moyers

Book Review: The Cultural Creatives
Paul H. Ray & Sherry Ruth
Anderson Reviewed by
Peter Montague

Remembrance: Robert Theobald
By Bob Stilger

Transforming Our Dreaming
By JosŽ Stevens

Democracy and the Airwaves
By Suzi Aufderheide

StarLink: More Bad News for Biotech
by Ronnie Cummins

The US Is Warned "Wake Up To Global Warming Threat"
By Environmental News Service

U.S. Position Threatens to Derail Climate Change Negotiations
By Cat Lazaroff

Martin Luther King, Jr: Global and
Social Shaman
By Royal E. Alsup, Ph.D.

Sexual Union, Inside and Out
By Peter Moore

A Pagan Speak to Jesus
By John Darling

Cosmic Calendar
By Salina Rain

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Clean Money: Campaign Finance Reform
By John Moyers

"Clean Money" campaign reform (CMCR) is an innovative model for comprehensive campaign finance reform. It is now the law that governs elections in Maine, Massachusetts, Arizona and Vermont. Ballot initiatives slated for this fall give voters in two states, Missouri and Oregon, a chance to decide if they want similar reforms. The model was developed by Washington, D.C.-based Public Campaign. Following is an excerpt from http://www.publicampaign.org/ that describes it.

Voters agree that campaigns are too expensive, special interests have too much influence, good candidates without money or connections to special interests don't have a fair chance of competing for office and politicians spend too much time raising campaign money instead of devoting their full energies to the duties of public office.

Clean money campaign reform addresses the most serious problems that concern voters:

• Campaigns are too expensive. CMCR limits campaign spending.
  
• Too much special-interest influence. CMCR prohibits special-interest contributions to participating candidates.
  
• Candidates and lawmakers spend too much time chasing money. CMCR eliminates need for fundraising.
  
• Good people don't have a fair chance to compete. CMCR provides a financially level playing field.
• There are too many loopholes. CMCR offers a comprehensive package to tighten loopholes.

CMCR is strictly voluntary, in keeping with Supreme Court rulings, but the proposal provides strong incentives for candidates to participate in the CMCR system. CMCR candidates who voluntarily reject private money and limit their spending receive a set amount of Clean Money from a publicly financed fund. Clean Money Campaign Reform represents the most comprehensive and far-reaching approach to election finance. While no two CMCR bills are exactly the same, the overall approach embodies:

-The strictest curbs on special-interest money and influence. CMCR bans the use of "soft money" to influence elections, discourages electioneering efforts masquerading as non-electoral "issue campaigns," provides additional funding to Clean Money candidates targeted by independent expenditures, and, most important of all, allows candidates to reject private contributions if they agree to participate in the CMCR system.

-The greatest reduction in the cost of campaigns. CMCR eliminates the need for fundraising expenses and provides (to federal candidates) a substantial amount of free and discounted TV and/or radio time, while requiring candidates to spend less on campaigns than under any other reform proposal.

-The most competitive and fair election financing. By providing limited but equal funding for qualified candidates, and additional funding for CMCR candidates if they are outspent by non-participating opponents, CMCR enables qualified individuals to run for office on a financially level playing field regardless of their economic status or access to large contributors.

-An end to the money chase, shorter elections, and stronger enforcement. Clean Money Campaign Reform frees candidates and elected officials from the burden of continuous fundraising and thus allows public officials to spend their time on their real duties. In effect, it also shortens the length of campaigns, when the public is bombarded with broadcast ads and mass mailings, by limiting the period during which candidates receive their funding. Moreover, it strengthens the enforcement and investigative authority of election commissions.

How Clean Money Campaign Reform Works

The CMCR approach is designed to provide a clear alternative to the current system of raising and spending largely special-interest money to finance election campaigns. It allows qualified candidates to run for public office without compromising their independence since they won't have to ask for money from those with a vested interest in public policy. The system is completely voluntary and candidates who do not wish to participate are able to raise and spend private money for their campaigns, as they do today.

Qualification: Candidates first must meet ballot access requirements, and then must meet the eligibility threshold for Clean Money funding. Most CMCR proposals require candidates to collect, during a pre-defined qualifying period, a prescribed number of signatures and $5 qualifying contributions from registered voters in their state or district. To cover minor costs during the qualifying period, candidates are permitted to raise a limited amount of seed money from private sources in amounts not exceeding $100 per contributor.

Primary funding: Candidates who meet CMCR requirements and agree not to raise or spend private money during the primary and general election campaign periods receive a set amount of money from the Clean Money fund. Federal candidates also receive a prescribed amount of free and discounted TV and/or radio time.
General election funding: Candidates who win their party primaries and qualifying independent candidates who agree to the voluntary restrictions receive a set amount of general election funding from the Clean Money fund, as well as additional free and discounted TV and/or radio time.

Non-participating candidates and independent expenditures: In order to maintain a financially level playing field, Clean Money candidates who are outspent by privately financed opponents, or targeted by independent expenditures, are entitled to a limited amount of matching funds.

Who Backs Clean Money Funding For Campaigns?

A range of people cutting across political, social, and economic lines. One reflection of the breadth of support for the Clean Money approach is found in Public Campaign's National Advisory Board. More than 90 notables and dignitaries have signed on, too, as a show of their support for this far-reaching reform. They include 21 Republican and Democratic former members of Congress, six former presidential candidates, and a long list of high-profile academics, businesspeople, religious activists, and other leaders in their fields. The most important show of support, however, is apparent in polling data collected in a number of different states in mid-1997. A solid majority of voters-Republicans, Democrats, and Independents alike-said they favored a Clean Money-type proposal. (In Massachusetts in 1998, 67 percent of voters approved a clean money initiative on the ballot.)

Clean Money Campaign Reform appeals to so many people because they know they are the losers under the current system. "The American people instinctively know that when big money rules, ordinary voters are left out in the cold," says John Anderson, former congressman and presidential candidate, and a founding co-chair of Public Campaign's National Advisory Board. "Our mission is nothing less than to restore our faith in government and to strengthen our national institutions so that they may endure and be passed on in good health to our children."

John Moyers is publisher of TomPaine.com, and sits on the board of Public Campaign, the group that devised the "clean money" campaign reform model and is assisting grassroots activists working at the state level to win public support. Public Campaign is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that supports "Clean Money" campaign finance reform, a proposal to create public financing for state and federal offices

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