Clean Elections for U.S. House and Senate Moving Forward--California Congressional Delegation Will Play Pivotal Role

Of course, House Speaker Pelosi will also be very important. While her support of this bill is very likely, displays of public support will only help to remind her of the importance of this bill and of championing reform.

While groups across California and the U.S. fight for health care reform, environmental sustainability, and a quality educational system, their efforts are frequently stymied by the influence of big money in politics. Meanwhile, the playing field in places with Clean Elections—like the states of Maine, Arizona, and Connecticut—has leveled and citizens no longer face an uphill battle in getting the government to respond to the needs of the public.

While Californians fight for health care reform against the powerful hand of the insurance industry, in Maine, where 84% of the state legislature was elected in the last cycle without taking a dime from special interests, the state was able to pass the nation’s first universal health care program.

Maine State Senate President Beth Edmonds said, "When I'm walking the halls of the legislature and I see lobbyists from major corporations or even small organizations, I know that I get to make decisions that think about all the people in my constituencies, all the people in my district and not just specific interest groups.”

Meanwhile, in Arizona, another Clean Elections state, a coalition of Republican moderates and Democrats in the legislature were able to pass a groundbreaking budget in 2004 that guaranteed all-day kindergarten for more than 150 of the state’s poorest schools, increased funding for community colleges, and provided financial help to thousands of working families in need of child care. Twenty-six of the 31 votes needed to pass the budget in the Assembly came from Clean Elections candidates and supporters.

Also in Arizona, Governor Janet Napolitano, a Clean Elections candidate, signed an executive order on her first day in office establishing prescription drug subsidies for seniors. Governor Napolitano said in a speech later that year, “If I had not run clean, I would surely have been paid visits by numerous campaign contributors representing pharmaceutical interests and the like, urging me either to shelve that idea or to create it in their image. All the while, they would be wielding the implied threat to yank their support and shop for an opponent in four years.”

Clean Elections for U.S. congressional campaigns could mean a long-term transformation in how politics works in the United States: making politicians accountable to the public interest rather than special interests; ensuring electoral outcomes based on the merits and ideas of the candidates rather than their fundraising abilities; and giving the politicians the opportunity to spend more time focusing on policy and their constituents, rather than dialing-for-dollars.

The danger of failing to focus on systemic issues is not the risk of losing; rather, it’s the risk of winning changes in the short-term – say, health care reforms or greenhouse gas emissions caps – that will have difficulty withstanding the withering pressures of special interest money over the long term. With the Fair Elections Now Act moving forward in the halls of Congress, we have an opportunity to remove that pressure for good.

Please visit www.commoncause.org/fairelectionsnow to find out more or contact Rob Arnow at info@voterownedelections.org to get more involved or with any questions.

Rob Arnow ran the successful effort to create a system of partial public campaign financing for the San Francisco mayoral race in 2005. He currently works for Common Cause, building support in the Bay Area and California for the Fair Elections Now Act.