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Campaign Finance Reform
By Mimi Murray Digby Marziani – 09/15/11
Crossposted at Salon.
All summer, NFL owners and players faced off in bare-knuckled negotiations that threatened to scotch this year's season. In the end, they reached a compromise. Americans have been cheering since last Thursday's first game.
The NFL opener coincided with the start of negotiations among members of the congressional supercommittee, tasked with crafting a long-term financial plan for our country. Unfortunately, the prospects for a crowd-pleasing, conciliatory ending seem much less likely.
This powerful committee held its first public hearing on Tuesday. Its "fans" — corporate lobbyists of all stripes — went wild, rushing the Capitol and positioning to get the biggest bang for their clients' bucks. One candidly revealed his best offensive strategy: "writing 12 really large checks." No doubt prominent campaign contributors of past elections, like the telecom giant AT&T and the abortion-rights advocate Emily's List, are also expecting front-row seats.
But, in the words of Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, "Democracy is not a game." The committee's choices will set the nation's fiscal course for years — if not decades — to come, and will affect virtually all American voters, industries and communities of interest. The stakes couldn't be higher.
There is only one way to ensure that committee members (the "supers") stay super-focused on the general good rather than personal gains: through robust transparency. All potentially corrupting outside influences — large campaign contributors, lobbying contacts and fundraising relationships with outside political groups — must be made public.
The reasons for the first two are obvious. Real-time disclosure of large campaign contributions made to supers while they are deliberating is a key way for the American people to ascertain who is trying to curry favor now. Indeed, there is bipartisan support to impose a tight deadline upon such contributions — a rarity in today's polarized political environment.
In early August, Sen. David Vitter, R-La., introduced the Super Committee Sunshine Act, which would force committee members to disclose contributions over $1,000 within a 48-hour window. In his words, "Given the important work this committee will be doing over the next four months, it's just plain good government for the public to know what special interests are trying to influence the committee."
Last week, Reps. Dave Loebsack, D-Iowa, Mike Quigley, D-Ill., and Jim Renacci, R-Ohio, introduced the more comprehensive Deficit Committee Transparency Act. Like its Senate counterpart, this bill would demand prompt disclosure of campaign contributions. It would also require supers and their staffs to publicly disclose meetings with lobbyists and other special interests within 48 hours.
Disclosing lobbying contacts is just plain common sense. As the Washington Post recently reported, almost 100 registered lobbyists who used to work for members of the supercommittee now represent "defense companies, health-care conglomerates, Wall Street banks and others with a vested interest in the outcome of the panel's work." And, half of the supers currently employ former lobbyists on their staffs. These close connections already raise the suspicion of backroom dealings. Holding meetings in secret does nothing but confirm our worst suspicions.
Unfortunately, both these bills are currently languishing in committee, and are not likely to see the light of day unless public attention forces congressional leaders to act. Even so, these measures are not enough.
The supers must also be forced to disclose their involvement in soliciting funds for supposedly independent groups that seek to influence politics. These groups — like SuperPACs, 501(c)(4)s, and trade organizations like the Chamber of Commerce — play an outsize role in today's elections, and can be designed to shield tit-for-tat arrangements with specific candidates. Without transparency, special interests could funnel political dollars for supers through friendly third-party groups with no disclosure obligations, ensuring that their political largess never becomes public.
Supers have certainly benefited from outside spending in recent elections. In her tight reelection last year, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., enjoyed more than $9 million of outside spending, helping her squeak by her Republican opponent, Dino Rossi. Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., spent years as the president of the anti-tax Club for Growth, a group that spent $8.2 million on independent expenditures last election cycle. As supers anticipate future hard elections, there is no question they will want these heavy-hitting political players on their side.
The temptation to promise political favors today for electoral support tomorrow will be hard to resist. The only solution is full transparency. After all, our democracy is on the front line.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Other Reforms, Disclosure
By Mark Ladov – 08/12/11
In another victory for political transparency, the First Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the constitutionality of disclosure laws in Maine and Rhode Island. The Court found that disclosure serves the public’s right to know the source of money in politics — without limiting or chilling the speech of advocates like the National Organization for Marriage, which brought both lawsuits. The Maine and Rhode Island decisions mark the latest in a string of court victories, which leave little doubt that robust disclosure laws serve the values of the First Amendment and promote a vigorous and open marketplace of ideas.
Current events in Washington remind us of the need for political transparency and disclosure of money in politics. With the debt ceiling raised, Congress now looks to the 12 Super Committee members to come up with $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction by November 23rd. Unsurprisingly, lobbyists are already focusing their attention — and money — on these dozen Senators and Representatives.
Given the stakes, the Brennan Center is calling on the Super Committee to make its dealings as transparent as possible, writing an op-ed in Politico and sending a letter to the Senate Rules Committee. All potentially corrupting outside influences — campaign contributors, ties to business corporations, relationships with political groups — must be made public.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Disclosure
By Elizabeth Kennedy – 08/09/11
Crossposted at Huffington Post.
Stanley Greenberg recently described the current crisis of government legitimacy. He wrote that "the nexus of money and power, greased by special interest lobbyists and large campaign donations" means that "the game is rigged" and "the wealthy and big industries get policies that reinforce their advantage." He quotes voters who say "we don't have a representative government anymore." Considering the federal government's recent performance, and with Congress's disapproval rating at an all time high of 82 percent, it's a legitimate critique.
The major justification for laws governing the financing of political campaigns is that they will prevent "both the actual corruption threatened by large financial contributions and the eroding of public confidence in the electoral process through the appearance of corruption." Unfortunately, a real roadblock to comprehensive reform is the constrained, impoverished view of corruption articulated by the Supreme Court's conservative majority. They have disavowed the Court's prior understanding of the corrosive and distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth on a democracy
The idea that money can have deleterious influences on elections, even outside the context of bribery, goes back more than a century. The Supreme Court recognized this in McConnell v. FEC, when it found that corruption of government is "not confined to bribery of public officials, but extend[s] to the broader threat from politicians too compliant with the wishes of large contributors." The possibility that legislators will "decide issues not on the merits or the desires of their constituencies, but according to the wishes of those who have made large financial contributions valued by the officeholder" is a more subtle form of corruption than straight quid pro quo transactions, but is "equally dispiriting." And in FEC v. Beaumont, the case upholding the ban on direct corporate contributions to candidates, the Court expressed concern that corporations would "use resources amassed in the economic marketplace to obtain an unfair advantage in the political marketplace."
Money in politics leads to corruption of government not only when a quid pro quo arrangement between a campaign contribution and favorable political treatment exists. The special access and undue influence awarded to those who have financial resources to support or oppose a representative's re-election are themselves a form of democratic corruption. It leads to the rampant cynicism and civic disengagement when voters conclude that "there's just such a control of government by the wealthy that whatever happens, it's not working for all the people; it's working for a few of the people."
Regrettably, in Citizens United the Court expressly found that "the appearance of influence or access . . . will not cause the electorate to lose faith in our democracy." As evidenced by Mr. Greenberg's research, the public has a more realistic understanding than the Supreme Court of the corruption that results from campaign finance policies that allow large amounts of money to dominate elections in a democracy. The American people understand that who pays the piper calls the tune, and don't care about the formalistic distinctions that run through campaign finance jurisprudence.
The Supreme Court has moved far away from a holistic view of what corruption of a representative government looks like. In another case decided this year, Nevada Commission on Ethics v. Carrigan, Justice Scalia discussed the motivations that induce a legislator to vote one way or another, and equated a legislator voting according to his best judgment, voting against his best judgment but in the interest of his constituents, and voting against his best judgment but in the interest of his contributors. Only the first two are democratically legitimate considerations when determining the public policy of our country — the last is a perversion of our democracy to benefit the wealthy and elite.
There are several proposals to increase transparency and accountability for money in politics. The Fair Elections Now Act would enact public financing of Congressional campaigns to break the stranglehold of special interest money. This would increase the amount of political speech available to voters, allow candidates to spend more time reaching out to voters and addressing their concerns, and supercharge the power of small donors. The draft Executive Order on disclosure of political spending by government contractors would shine a light into back-rooms and discourage political favoritism when spending taxpayer money. The Shareholder Protection Act would require companies to get permission from their shareholders and disclose the money they spend to influence elections. The 2012 elections are expected to be the most expensive ever, and awash in the secret spending should our leaders fail to enact reforms.
During the debate on the debt ceiling, polls showed that most Americans, including a majority of Republicans, were in favor of taking a balanced approach and raising revenue by closing loopholes that benefit the wealthiest Americans and special interests. And yet, once again, the result from Washington did not reflect the people's preferred policy solution. Our government is not serving their interests, and it is a democratic shame.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Other Reforms, Disclosure
By Erik Opsal – 08/08/11
Crossposted at WisOpinion.
What’s up with Wisconsin? I’m surprised when I hear that question, seeing as I now live in New York City. As a former Badger, people outside of the state think I have special insight into the mind of Wisconsin’s political class. But just like all of you, I’m dumbfounded.
The past six months have been quite entertaining. Weeks of protests at the state Capitol, a multi-million dollar Supreme Court election and recount, a polarizing drive for a Voter ID bill, and now a series of recall elections that have brought in millions of dollars from outside interest groups. To the rest of the country, Wisconsin is a mad, mad world.
"This is so out of whack from everything we've ever seen,” said Mike McCabe, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, in an interview with Mother Jones about the recall elections. Approximately $3.75 million was spent on legislative races in 2010. For Tuesday's recalls, more than $30 million has already poured in, according to McCabe, and that number is likely to rise.
It’s not the candidates spending all this money—it’s outside interest groups, fighting a proxy war over collective bargaining rights, who are keeping voters in the dark. The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision is largely to blame for this deluge of hidden spending. That decision, and others, opened the floodgates for corporations and unions to spend at will and obscure that spending through so-called “Super PACs.” Without proper laws to bring this spending out of the dark, Wisconsinites don’t know who is trying to sway their vote.
At the same time voters get blasted with outside TV ads, the new Voter ID bill makes it harder for them to vote.
In my four years at UW-Madison, I lived at four different addresses. Each time, I registered at the polls by bringing my proof of residency (a utility bill) and nothing more. I wasn’t trying to subvert the system. I voted in state elections, city elections, and county elections. I even moderated a debate between two County Board candidates. I wasn’t one of these students who came from out of state and voted in Wisconsin without knowing who I was voting for, as some Voter ID advocates claim. I truly engaged with Wisconsin politics.
If I had to get a new driver’s license every time I changed my address, as I would under the current Voter ID bill, would I have been so involved? Probably. But it represents an unnecessary obstacle to voting—the bedrock of our democracy—and one that many Wisconsinites might not choose to overcome, especially the poor or the elderly, who might find it hard to get to the DMV.
This kind of Voter ID requirement disproportionately affects the elderly, minorities, and students. According to a 2005 UW-Milwaukee study, 23 percent of voters over the age of 65 do not have a photo ID, 70 percent of whom are women. Statewide, 55 percent of African American males and 49 percent of African American females do not have a photo ID, compared to 17 percent of white males and females. And for students living in the UWM, Marquette, and UW-Madison dorms, just 3 percent had a photo ID with their current address.
To be sure, we need to do everything we can to protect the integrity of our democracy, including guarding our elections from voter fraud. But modernizing voter registration and tightening election administration procedures furthers this goal much more than measures making it harder to vote.
Protecting this integrity not only requires easing Voter ID restrictions, but also passing new laws requiring disclosure of political spending. After jumping through hoops just to be able to vote, the least we can do for Wisconsin voters is reveal who is spending millions to influence their decision. Without that, the country will be left asking, what’s up with Wisconsin?
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Disclosure, Voting Rights & Elections, Student Voting, Voter ID
By Elizabeth Kennedy – 08/04/11
A committee of leading law professors, including Lucian Bebchuk and Robert Jackson, the authors of the seminal article Corporate Political Speech: Who Decides?, filed a petition with the Securities and Exchange Commission calling for the agency to require publicly held companies to disclose their political spending.
Information about corporate spending on politics is important to shareholders. The petition demonstrates the increasing interest of investors in monitoring corporate spending on political activity by providing data about the recent explosion in proxy proposals to address the issue.
It also points to evolving best practices among companies that voluntarily adopt strong disclosure policies, and suggests that the SEC use these policies to devise a rule for all publicly traded companies. These policies demonstrate that disclosure of corporate political spending is entirely feasible and that a well-designed disclosure rule will not be overly burdensome.
The petition concludes:
Shareholders in public companies have increasingly expressed strong interest in receiving information about corporate political spending on politics, and such spending is likely to become even more important to public investors in the future. Furthermore, shareholders need to receive such information for markets and the procedures of corporate democracy to ensure that such spending is in shareholders’ interest. Still, while many large public companies have begun to provide such information, no existing rule requires disclosure of this information to investors, and corporate political spending remains opaque to investors in most publicly traded companies. The Commission should address this lack of transparency and, drawing on its expertise and experience in designing rules for disclosure of other information that is of interest to investors, should adopt rules concerning disclosure of corporate political spending.
While the petition stops short of recommending that the SEC adopt any specific new disclosure rule, it is a heartening first step. It opens a critical front in the fight to ensure corporate political spending is transparent and accountable to shareholders.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Other Reforms
By Elizabeth Kennedy – 07/18/11
In Citizens United last year, the U.S. Supreme Court stunned the country by overturning the ban on corporations spending money to influence elections. This year, for the first time in three decades, the Court heard a case involving public financing of elections. Campaign finance reformers held their breath and braced for another blow.
On the final day it issued opinions this term, the Supreme Court released another 5-4 decision, this one involving Arizona’s public financing law. Arizona Free Enterprise Club v. Bennett struck down a provision that gave additional funds to publicly funded candidates when they faced high opposition spending.
Although the decision is a blow to efforts to curb the corrupting role of large campaign contributions, it does not sound the death knell for public financing as a whole. For that, reformers can be thankful.
The case only involved one provision of Arizona's law, but there was reason to fear, and for opponents to hope, that an overreaching Supreme Court would take down all public financing — as various groups supporting the challenge to Arizona’s law expressly requested.
The constitutionality of public financing programs was established in Buckley v. Valeo, the foundational campaign finance case. There, the Court found that providing public financing served to “facilitate and enlarge public discussion and participation in the electoral process, goals vital to a self-governing people.” The challengers of Arizona’s law disagreed.
Arizona’s law was adopted by referendum after a huge corruption scandal. Candidates who voluntarily participated in the program received an initial grant and agreed to a spending cap. If a publicly financed candidate faced high-spending opposition, though, she would receive more money to respond, up to a maximum amount. Plaintiffs argued that the threat of a response burdened their speech.
Reform opponents argued, further, that public financing as a whole was a failure and that public financing “fundamentally alters the relationship between the governed and the government.” Plaintiffs told the Court at oral argument that “[t]his case is about whether the government may insert itself into elections and manipulate campaign spending to favor its preferred candidates.”
We’d seen this horror movie before.
Citizens United itself was first heard by the Supreme Court as a narrow challenge. That case could, and many argue should, have been decided on much narrower grounds — whether the ban on corporations running advertisements meant to influence elections should apply to Citizens United’s video on-demand movie. Instead, the Supreme Court chose to strike down the entire ban and allow corporations to spend directly to influence elections. This overreaching was widely decried, and it demonstrated a willingness by the Court to reach beyond the facts of the case in front of them in First Amendment challenges to campaign finance laws.
Fortunately, in the Arizona case, the Court did not repeat Citizens United’s overreaching. In fact, Chief Justice Roberts explicitly wrote that questioning the wisdom of public financing was “not our business.”
After Arizona Free Enterprise Club, public campaign financing remains a vital and constitutional campaign finance reform. It defends our democratic system from the corrupting influence of big money in elections. Representatives can better represent their constituents when they are not beholden to special interests, and they can spend more time getting voters invested in elections when they are not constantly chasing big checks. In her searing dissent, Justice Kagan explained that people support public financing because it serves “to stop corrupt dealing – to ensure that their representatives serve the public, and not just the wealthy donors who helped put them in office.”
There are many existing public financing programs that continue to pass constitutional muster, including New York City’s small donor matching system, where small privately raised donations from New York residents are matched by public funds. They are models for reform.
This is surely not the last time that those who prefer a wild-west campaign spending environment — where money talks and big money owns the only amplifiers — will try to derail public financing. But for now, reformers can exhale and continue to implement and strengthen public financing systems around the country. By doing so, they will return voters to the center of our democracy.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Public Financing
By Mark Ladov – 07/14/11
Crossposted at ThinkProgress.
Public financing of elections can curb the corrupting influence of large campaign contributions. But has the Supreme Court doomed this important political reform?
Certainly, by striking down a piece of Arizona’s public financing law (in yet another divisive 5-4 campaign finance opinion), the Roberts Court set back one particular model of public financing. But the Arizona ruling was limited to a narrow question: whether states can award additional funding to publicly financed candidates who face a high-spending opponent or unexpectedly expensive outside attack ads. The Court expressly refused to cast doubt on the constitutionality of public financing generally. Nor did the Court question its long-standing belief (from the 1976 case of Buckley v. Valeo) that public financing helps “to facilitate and enlarge public discussion and participation in the electoral process, goals vital to a self-governing people.”
Based on this narrow victory, some opponents of campaign finance reform will crow about the death of public financing. But don’t believe the hype. Public financing is alive and well…and living in New York City.
For more than two decades, New York City candidates have participated in a voluntary public financing program. As is too often the case, this reform was born out of scandal and tragedy — including the 1986 suicide of former Queens Borough President Donald Manes following revelations about extortion and bribery among contractors and city officials. The City Council overwhelmingly passed a voluntary public financing program as part of the ensuing political reforms. New York City has been at the forefront of public financing ever since.
The City’s most notable innovation is its use of multiple matching funds to encourage small donor outreach.
Under current rules, the City gives participating candidates a $6 to $1 match in public financing for the first $175 they raise from New York City voters. A voter’s $175 donation to her local City Council candidate is now worth as much as a $1,225 contribution from a special-interest lobbyist. This encourages candidates to target average New Yorkers — and allows candidates with grassroots support to run viable campaigns, even without the backing of big money.
New York City’s pioneering experiment has been a resounding success. The program has enjoyed robust participation by serious, credible candidates. It has promoted voter choice by increasing diversity and competition in City elections. It has dramatically expanded the number of New Yorkers who participate in electoral campaigns. And it is a powerful weapon against the corrupting influence of special interest money; research suggests that large donors, unions and PACs exert less influence on publicly-financed candidates who depend heavily on small donors.
Crucially, the small donor matching fund model used by New York City matches public funding to a candidate’s own fundraising. This avoids the constitutional problems raised in the Arizona case, by ensuring that a candidate’s public financing rises or falls based on her own success at campaigning.
Some have suggested that the Supreme Court’s ruling raises questions about New York City’s “bonus” funds. This rarely-triggered provision increases the matching ratio when a participating candidate faces a really high-spending opponent. Importantly, under this scheme, any additional public funds received by the participant are pegged to her own campaign fundraising. Moreover, the bonus funds are largely irrelevant to the success of New York’s program. In Arizona, all participating candidates received the same lump sum grant and had no access to additional money without the triggered funds – and so, seriously risked being overwhelmed by a high-spending opponent. Under the small donor matching fund model, on the other hand, candidates can continue to fundraise on their own when facing vigorous opposition. So, unlike in Arizona, New York’s program would remain strong even without the bonus funds.
New York City’s program has deep roots. But it is a particularly important model for reform in the Internet age. President Obama’s groundbreaking 2008 presidential run showed how a candidate could use digital media and social network tools to reach a broader base of supporters than ever before. These small donors provide important political balance, particularly in our post-Citizens United world of unchecked political spending. When a candidate must rely entirely on wealthy donors to run for office, it’s only natural that those donors will dictate our laws and policies. But when a candidate can run for office with the support of small donors, he can remain responsive to the voters at large — and not just a handful of special interests.
So the next time someone says the Supreme Court has closed the book on public financing, you can tell them we’re just opening a new chapter. And you read it first in New York City.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Public Financing
By Adam Skaggs – 07/14/11
Crossposted at Huffington Post.
Last week, a campaign finance watchdog group blasted Rep. Mike Simpson, chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior, for using his position to dole out major favors to big money campaign backers. Simpson's subcommittee rewarded agribusiness backers — who have given his campaigns at least $643,000 — with exemptions that weaken rules on greenhouse gas emissions and pollution. For oil and gas interests that gave Simpson more than $131,000, the subcommittee expanded offshore drilling and restricted the EPA's ability to limit pollution stemming from these new exploration permits.
When handing out political favors like these is standard operating procedure, it is not surprising that many Americans fear our elected officials are more interested in doing what their campaign donors want — instead of what's in the public's interest.
This same story played out two decades ago in Arizona, during the 1990s "AzScam" scandal. After a video camera caught a politician illegally collecting campaign cash in a duffle bag — and 10 percent of the state legislature was indicted in a sweeping corruption scandal — Arizonans enacted a clean elections law that provided public funds to political candidates. The law aimed to make sure lawmakers would act to benefit the public, not campaign benefactors.
Last month, the U.S. Supreme Court considered one provision of Arizona's law — its "triggered matching funds." These provided supplemental funding to publicly financed candidates who faced high spending opposition.
By a 5-4 vote, the Court struck down the triggers, concluding they disadvantaged privately funded candidates and interest groups who oppose publicly financed candidates. Essentially, the majority declared that under the Constitution, it is less important to promote speech by candidates who can't run without public funds than it is to ensure that wealthy, self-funded candidates and special interests can speak free of response.
Put differently, the Roberts Court recognized a series of new "rights" under the First Amendment: a right to speak without any response, a right to preserve your monetary advantage in political debate — even a right to purchase the silence of any potential political rivals.
Surely, this is not what the Framers of the First Amendment had in mind.
Justice Elena Kagan's eloquent dissent explained clearly how the five-justice majority got it wrong. The law didn't in any way reduce or burden speech, Kagan wrote. "What the law does — all the law does — is fund more speech. And under the First Amendment, that makes all the difference."
However misguided, the majority's decision was a relatively narrow one, limited to the specific trigger provisions at issue. Reports of the demise of public financing as a whole are greatly exaggerated. Even the majority recognized that voluntary public financing without triggers is fully constitutional.
That is crucial, because no reform works better than public financing to fight corruption and restore confidence in our democracy. In Arizona and dozens of other jurisdictions, public financing has effectively constrained political corruption.
Despite the proven successes of various campaign finance reforms, the current Supreme Court has shown severe hostility to any attempt to reduce the influence of money in our elections. As recently as 2003, the Court upheld most of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. But since John Roberts and Samuel Alito joined the Court, things have changed — dramatically.
Five times in five years, the Roberts Court considered a campaign finance case. Five times, including in Citizens United, the court struck down attempts to address the domination of elections by corporate and special interests.
In its latest decision, the Court said triggers make opponents refrain from political spending because their spending causes extra money to be disbursed to candidates they oppose. In reality, empirical analyses of political spending in Arizona (and elsewhere) confirm that triggers haven't deterred any spending. Overall political spending increased substantially after Arizona adopted public financing. Triggers saved taxpayer money from being wasted in uncompetitive contests where additional funds were not needed.
And they made Arizona's clean elections law a tremendous success. A clear majority of likely voters in Arizona said in 2010 that they supported public financing; just 7 percent disapproved. Candidates from across the political spectrum have participated — incumbents and challengers, Republicans and Democrats — and with public financing, competition in Arizona elections has improved and there have been fewer uncontested elections.
Public funding ensures that voters remain at the center of our democracy — and that elections aren't bought and paid for by special interests. Public financing limits the influence of big money campaign donations, encourages candidates with limited resources to run for office, and increases competitiveness and diversity in elections. It frees politicians from the burden and distraction involved in constant fundraising. And for more than a decade, public financing in Arizona prevented another scandal like AzScam.
New York City also adopted public financing after a major corruption scandal more than 20 years ago. New York's program is a resounding success, and it provides a model for other jurisdictions. New York's law doesn't include triggers like Arizona's. Instead, it matches small donations from city voters — with a 6 to 1 match of contributions up to $175.
Small donor matching programs fuse fundraising and voter outreach efforts by encouraging candidates to spend time reaching out to ordinary voters, not fat-cat donors. They supercharge the power of small donations and promote voter choice by enabling a diverse pool of candidates to run competitive campaigns — even if they have little access to wealthy, powerful benefactors.
Congress, the states, and municipalities around the country should adopt small donor matching programs without delay. They are the surest way to guarantee that voters, not dollars, are the heart of our democracy.
Tags: Democracy, Campaign Finance Reform, Public Financing
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