Following
yesterday's Supreme Court decision invalidating Vermont's campaign finance reform law, you might be wondering whether there's any hope for further proposals to reduce the impact of wealth on the political process.
There is.
To be clear: yesterday's decision strong suggested that any restrictions on a campaign's own spending would be held unconstitutional, as would limits on individual contributions to campaigns set so low as to prevent challengers from waging competitive races.
But the door is wide open for states to introduce voluntary measures to even up the playing field, and here I am referring to Clean Elections.
Those of you who attended my YearlyKos panel know how it works: a candidate can receive public funding for her campaign upon demonstrating a certain level of support (usually, by collecting a decent number of $5 donations), in exchange for agreeing to not raise private contributions (or encourage independent expenditures) on her behalf. It's generally enough to wage a competitive campaign, but here's the kicker: if your opponent is not publicly funded and outspends you (or has significant independent expenditures on his behalf), you're also entitled to matching funds to remain competitive (up to certain limits).
This is already the law in Arizona and Maine, and will become effective in Connecticut for its 2008 state elections. Just yesterday, a voter initiative to bring clean elections to California qualified for the November ballot.
Meanwhile, Reps. John Tierney (D-MA) and Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) have introduced H.R. 3099, to make federal elections clean. My understanding is that members of the Senate are working on a similar approach.
Today, June 27, happens to be Clean Money Day, and there may well be a house party near you to screen Bob Greenwald's new film The Big Buy: How Tom Delay Stole Congress and join a nationwide conference call with Greenwald, Common Cause president Chellie Pingree, representatives of Public Campaign and others to discuss the campaign for Clean Elections.
In addition, Public Campaign and other organizations are encouraging candidates to sign its Voters First Pledge, in order to reduce lobbyists' influence on elections, mandate full disclosure and bring voluntary public financing to federal elections.
I became involved in the fight to keep political speech on the Internet free from restrictions because I believe that this technology provides a great way to lessen the impact of organized wealth on our political process. But we can't offset millions by ourselves. Clean Elections are one way to get us closer to a system in which the candidates with the best ideas, and not just the best connections, are encouraged to and able to become public servants.