ByJosh Zaharoff Posted on Thu May 08, 2008 at 11:58:46 AM EST
I'm cross posting a piece here on small donors, which I worked with our president Bob Edgar to put together, looking at the trends in small donor giving this cycle for presidential and congressional candidates -- the two are very different -- and how that impacts our work to limit big money's role and engage more people in our political system.
ByIan Storrar Posted on Tue Apr 15, 2008 at 05:31:55 PM EST
We've seen a lot of coverage of the public financing/campaign finance debate recently. The main drive has been from the Obama-McCain will they/won't they grist mill and the small donor "revolution" theory. Our colleague at the Brennan Center, Laura MacCleery posted a great blog on Huffington Post today about these issues:
But it will not help us move forward if enthusiasm for this influx of small donors obscures the facts. Money from large donors is not exactly going the way of the dinosaurs -- 79 bundlers for Obama have hit up their friends for aggregate contributions of $200,000 each. Still, it is certainly indisputable that having more small donations and less reliance on a tiny pool of wealthy people is a happy development in a democracy.
I very much agree. Small donors are good for democracy, it's a sign of ordinary people participating in the system, and these people are likely to get more involved in the grassroots. Just as politicians who raise money in the current system are not bad people (the vast majority are excellent people and in politics for the common good), people are generally good and are giving small donations with noble motivations. The problem is, the system is still broken. Money still buys power. Most people don't have money. Most people don't and can't give money.
ByJosh Zaharoff Posted on Mon Apr 14, 2008 at 04:14:03 PM EST
The big public financing bill failed in Maryland this session under relentless opposition from the Senate President, Mike Miller. But a bill to give Montgomery County permission to enact Clean Elections also failed, despite no public opposition whatsoever. The Washington Post today condemned this mysterious and disappointing fate:
Practically every delegate and state senator from the county itself backed the bill, which would have established a voluntary system of public financing for qualifying candidates for county executive and the nine seats on the County Council. No lawmaker in either chamber of the Maryland General Assembly publicly opposed it. In the House of Delegates, the measure sailed to passage by a vote of 137 to 0.
In the Senate, where the bill was assigned to the Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee, a single witness testified on the bill (council member Phil Andrews), explaining its merits and encountering nothing but favorable reactions from the senators who were present. And then, mysteriously, the bill never came up for a vote. Call it death by silence. (A similar bill to establish a statewide system of public financing for elections also died in the legislature, for at least the sixth time in the last decade.)
It's unclear who administered the coup de grace to the Montgomery bill. Some suspect Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert), an opponent of campaign finance reform at the state level -- but he denies it. Perhaps it was the committee chair, Sen. Joan Carter Conway (D-Baltimore), who didn't return our phone call. If so, she didn't tip her hand to other members of her committee.
ByJosh Zaharoff Posted on Sat Apr 12, 2008 at 07:31:29 PM EST
Check out the latest MobLogic episode on the mountains of campaign contributions collected by Obama, Clinton, and McCain.
They keep it light hearted, but it's excellent to see coverage of the money -- not just how much, but where it comes from, and whether that's good for democracy or not. That's not a rhetorical question. More small donors getting involved is a great development, but it's not clear how permanent and widespread the trend is. I'll be taking a closer look at those trends and campaign finance policies and posting some notes on that in the upcoming week.
ByIan Storrar Posted on Fri Apr 11, 2008 at 03:49:48 PM EST
I know you've all been missing your somewhat regular dose of information on what Common Cause has been working on across the country at the local, state and national level. Here's the latest edition of the Yellow Memo (as it's known in the CC office - it has been printed on yellow paper for as long as anyone remembers). Thanks to volunteer Mary Jo Cittadino we've got the memo back up and running. In future it'll mostly be posted under her name, but I wanted to introduce it this time. Enjoy!
House Administration Committee Approve Bills
On April 2 the Committee on House Administration approved two vital measures: The Emergency Assistance for Secure Elections Act of 2008 (HR 5036) will help states safeguard voting machines in November's general election. The Universal Right to Vote By Mail (HR 281) will ease administrative hurdles for voters who wish to vote by absentee ballot. The bill clarifies that voters may request the right to vote by absentee ballot without needing to give an "excuse."
Common Cause has championed both measures since their introduction. In a press release, President Bob Edgar commended "those on the House Administration Committee who voted in support of these measures" and urged "the full House and Senate to follow suit to help ensure voting security and accessibility in November."
ByMike Surrusco Posted on Thu Apr 10, 2008 at 10:06:08 AM EST
Some thoughts on the article in today's NYT about the McCain/Obama public financing question.
First, you can obviously understand Obama's reticence in signing up for public matching funds during the general election because he's raised about a gazillion dollars. So has Clinton for that matter.
As for Obama's claim that he has created a parallel public financing system, that's kind of a stretch. The idea of public financing is to create a SYSTEM that builds in incentives for candidates to raise money from lots of small contributions, like Obama has, by matching small donations with, say, a 3-1 match.
As for McCain, his campaign takes delight in blasting Obama for hinting that he is not taking public financing even though he said he would. But if you read the rest of the article, McCain's people say he is not committed to it either. He may not have said explicitly that he would take public financing during the general election, but one would certainly hope that he would considering how much mileage he is getting out of his self-styled identity as a reformer (aka maverick).
ByJosh Zaharoff Posted on Wed Apr 09, 2008 at 03:44:53 PM EST
College students in Michigan, working with our friends at Democracy Matters, came up with an innovative and fun way to educate students about the Fair Elections Now Act and get attention from their Congressman, Rep. Vern Ehlers. It involves signed bars of soap. Check out the local news story.
(Apologies that I can't embed the video here; it won't work. But check out the news story -- it's about 2:30 long and quite good.)
ByJosh Zaharoff Posted on Mon Apr 07, 2008 at 01:11:13 PM EST
With a lot of excitement over the outpouring of support from small donors for the leading presidential candidates in the last few months, Laura MacCleery of the Brennan Center for Justice analyzed the "small donor revolution" today in Roll Call (subscription req'd, so I'll paste a bunch of her column below the fold).
She does a fine job articulating the difference between an influx in presidential campaign donations over the last few months and the continued reliance of Congress -- and, generally, the presidential campaigns -- on wealthy donors, while pointing out the importance of contribution limits in the current system and in an ideal public financing system in the future.
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