Right now, the Senate Rules Committee is holding a hearing on S. 1285, the Fair Elections Now Act, a bipartisan bill to create a voluntary public financing option for Senate campaigns. (A parallel measure has been introduced in the House, and it has fifty sponsors already.) You can watch the hearing on C-SPAN, or via the Committee's website.
Here's how I've explained the bill before. It has three parts:
- Seed Money: Candidates can raise up to $100 per individual/PAC to get a campaign off the ground (up to a set limit), in an effort to finance their bid to ...
- Gather Qualifying Contributions: To qualify for public financing, Senate candidate needs to demonstrate her seriousness and base of support by obtaining a set number of $5 contributions (and no more than $5) from citizens across the state. Obtain enough (based on the size of your state), and you receive ...
- The Benefits: For agreeing not to accept private funding, a candidate instead receives a large sum of money to run her primary campaign, and if she is successful, a larger sum for the general as well. That sum is based on the size of the state and its media costs, and if the candidate is facing an opponent receing private money or support via independent expenditures, it can be as much as tripled (the "fair fight fund") to ensure a level playing field.
Among those testifying in support of the bill today are co-sponsor Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Arlen Specter (R-PA), former Stride-Rite CEO Arnold Hiatt (who's tired of having to be a big donor in the system) and Public Campaign's Nick Nyhart, who will say this, and more:
Fortunately there is a common sense answer that will refocus elections on voters and volunteers instead of campaign cash and political bundlers. The Fair Elections Now Act (FENA) puts everyone in our country on an equal footing and provides candidates for Congress a way to run without joining in the campaign money chase.
FENA draws upon model laws in Maine and Arizona that have been in place for a number of political cycles and provide an alternative to the pay to play system. Under FENA, Senatorial candidates would qualify for public funding by collecting a set number of small contributions based on the size of their state's population. In California, for example, you'd need close to 30,000 five dollar contributions to qualify for the funding. Once qualified, these candidates would receive funds sufficient to run a competitive campaign while agreeing to strict spending limits and forgoing all private contributions. In California, candidates for U.S. Senate would get a baseline amount of about $20 million. If their opponent uses public financing they get they same amount and you have a financially level playing field. If the fair elections candidate has an opponent who raises more than the $20 million in private donations they receive additional "fair fight" funds to keep a level playing field. They also can receive additional matching funds if attacked by outside expenditures....
The cost of FENA is relatively small-less than one thirtieth of one percent of the federal budget. In fact, there were more than $64 billion in earmarks in 2006 while Fair Elections would cost us less than one billion dollars. ...
More than 110 Representatives and Senators have publicly stated their support for this kind of system, a near tripling of support levels from a year ago. Outside Congress, it's not just the good government and reform-oriented groups, like Americans For Campaign Reform, the Brennan Center for Justice. Common Cause, Democracy Matters, Democracy 21, Public Citizen, and USPIRG, that have taken up the cause of the Fair Elections Now Act. At the bill's introduction, some of the most established and respected organizations in our country, representing tens of millions of Americans also supported this measure, including the NAACP, the Sierra Club, the Dolores Huerta Foundation, and the League of Women Voters. And there are business leaders on board as well; people like former Seagrams CEO Edgar Bronfman, Costco's President & CEO Jim Sinegal, New Yorker Alan Patricof, often referred to as the "father" of venture capitalism, former Stride Rite CEO Arnold Hiatt, and former Nixon administration official and founder of the Blackstone Group, Pete Peterson.
It is possible to change politics for the better. And we must do to it together. Working alongside each other we can leave behind the unsustainable money chase and its negative side effects. Together, we can create a new system based on the widely shared American values of fair competition, equal opportunity and inclusive participation. It is an idea whose time has come.
In addition to Durbin and Specter, the bill presently has eight additional co-sponsors: Boxer (CA), Cardin (MD), Carper (DE), Feingold (WI), Harkin (IA), Kennedy (MA), McCaskill (MO), Obama (IL). If your Senator isn't on the list, call them on the phone today and ask them to sponsor this vital legislation.