Over the weekend, the New York Times ran a editorial on a topic that often gets overlooked but is quickly becoming a major concern for a host of public interest organizations that count on judicial fairness: the megabucks flowing into judicial elections from special interests.  The most egregious example recently, that the Times highlights, was the CEO of a major coal company bankrolling a state Supreme Court justice's electoral campaign, and then the justice turning around and casting the deciding vote to vacate a $50 million verdict against the CEO's company.

I'm no money manager, but I'm pretty sure that the $50 million, a 1,667% return on $3 million invested in campaign contributions, is what you'd call a "good return on your investment."

Unless you're invested in a healthy democracy and a fair, impartial judicial system.  Then you'd just call that absurd and senseless and you'd push for public financing of judicial races, as we're doing.

Final grade, as of today: F. Aware of our criticism, and having been urged on several occasions by CC/NY and its coalition partners to introduce a strong campaign finance bill, Governor Paterson finally got off the dime and announced the details of a bill he plans to introduce - as we were holding our press conference. At least we know we had some effect! You can watch Albany Channel 10's report about the press conference and the Governor's actions.

The Connecticut Citizens' Election Program handed the first election grants to qualified candidates at a press conference Tuesday that included some of the state's most prominent elected officials.

Gov. M. Jodi Rell, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, House Majority Leader Rep. Chris Donovan, Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz and many other officials were on hand to celebrate the arrival of the long-awaited campaign finance reform.

"We expect that we will be changing the face of the elections in CT for good and yes forever. These reforms make Connecticut a national leader in electoral reforms and in fact I believe we are a model for the rest of the nation."

So far, according to the State Elections Enforcement Commission, 145 candidates have opted into the program, though that number is expected to significantly increase in the coming weeks. CT News Junkie wrote:

USA Today has an "Improving Elections" editorial piece up that includes five sensible recommendations for a better presidential campaign, including paper records of votes cast on electronic voting machines, monitoring and curtailing the influence of 527s and other independent soft money groups, and taking public financing.

While they won't all be easy, they get it right in terms of making the election a boost for democracy and tackling important issues, rather than about trivialities and wealthy interests.

The trend continues in the presidential race.  As the Campaign Finance Institute's analysis of April fundraising numbers shows, small donors constitute a substantial majority of the recent financial support for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Both Democratic candidates raised more than half of their April funds in increments of $200 or less.  John McCain remains dependent on large donors for the majority of his support.  This does not tell the whole story -- after all, all three candidates relied on major donor support to launch their campaigns -- but it portends an exciting six months leading up to the November election.  Hopefully more and more small donors buy into the presidential election process with a contribution and feel a greater stake in the outcome.

As I've noted in the past, this shouldn't be confused with trends in the races for Congress, which are moving in the opposite direction, where major donors dominate and small donors are "not a factor."  We need Clean Elections-style public financing for Congress now more than ever.