Common Cause Blog

No quit in Durbin

Senate Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin dropped by the Big Tent today. Durbin is the champion and co-author with Sen. Arlen Specter of the bipartisan Fair Elections Now Act (S.1285), the bill to create a full public financing system for U.S. Senate races. The average Senate winner spent $9.6 million in 2006, and as Durbin likes to point out, it cost an average of over $7 million to lose a Senate race last cycle.

Durbin spoke to bloggers and other media but I caught him on his way out. I thanked him for his leadership on public financing. True to form, he ignored the praise and spoke of the work to be done. With a hostile Supreme Court on the campaign finance front, Durbin was unfazed. "We still need to do this," he said, regardless of the Court. "I don't think we're sunk, not at all."

With folks like Sen. Ken Salazar saying we need to do something on campaign finance reform, and Durbin and Specter in the lead, 2009 is shaping up to be a big and critical year to move forward in changing how we finance federal elections.

Jay Mandle on T. Boone Pickens' plan

Jay Mandle analyzes the strange-bedfellows partnership between oilman T. Boone Pickens and environmentalists on the topic of promoting wind power to reduce our dependence on oil. As Mandle points out, these two camps won't just need each other to push through substantive clean energy reforms -- they'll also likely need to overcome the power of wealthy special interests like Big Oil.

Pickens is a steadfast Republican who notoriously financed the Swift Boat attack on Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in 2004. But in advancing his plan, he will find more allies among environmentalists than among his conservative friends....

Many environmentalists welcome Pickens' wind power initiative, whatever his past politics.

But even Pickens will have to battle entrenched energy special interests that have long stymied the environmental movement. Since 1990, donors associated with the oil and gas industries gave $220.4 million to politicians running for office, compared to just $3.4 million from donors connected to alternative energy production and services firms. In our political system, where private funding buys political influence, alternative energy advocates simply lacked the clout to get Congress to support renewables. Even with Pickens on their side, the green movement cannot hope to compete in the pay-to-play system of campaign financing.

Again, it points to comprehensive reform like public financing as a first step to solving other, major problems.

Common Cause Weekly Update - June 11, 2008

Common Cause continues its efforts to hold power accountable.

Abuse of Power: Forging the Path to Recovery

Common Cause hosted a distinguished panel on June 10 to discuss the widespread abuse of power engaged in by the current Administration. The Administration has disregarded the rule of law through over-broad assertions of executive power, abuse of signing statements, and policies that arguably flout the Constitution regarding interrogation, detention, and intelligence gathering. The Congress has repeatedly failed to perform its constitutionally mandated oversight duties in each of these areas.

The panelists were charged with examining these disturbing trends and with considering how best to restore the constitutional constraints that have served our country well since its inception.

Feinstein is key

Rob Arnow posts on Sen. Feinstein and the Fair Elections Now Act at the California Progress Report.

Right here in California, we have a tremendous opportunity, and responsibility, to affect the outcome of this bill. The bill begins its journey in the Rules and Administration Committee in the Senate, of which Dianne Feinstein is the Chair. She hasn't taken a position yet, and the opinions of other elected officials, activists, businesspeople, and regular citizens will be very important to her in how she comes down on the issue.

Citizens' Elections Program takes off in Connecticut

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:

Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz said it's estimated that 70 to 80 percent of candidates will participate in public financing this year, which is historic when compared to Maine and Arizona where the participation rate was about 30 percent in the first year. She said a federal survey a few years ago found that over time both Maine and Arizona experienced significant increases in the amount of candidates contesting races in both primaries and general elections. And voter participation in these two states has risen about 10 percent since public financing was enacted, Bysiewicz noted. CT News Junkie, June 3, 2008

All over the map: Arizona small donor study

What kind of impact does Clean Elections have on the participants in our democracy? A big one -- even greater than what we previously knew, thanks to Public Campaign's new study out this week, "All Over the Map: Small Donors Bring Diversity to Arizona's Elections." They looked at the donors in statewide races covered by the state-level Clean Elections program in Arizona and compared them to the donors in federal races for Senate, which have the same statewide electorate but currently have no public funding or Clean Elections option.

The difference is striking: from race and ethnicity to economic and geographic levels, the Clean Elections donors represent a much wider and more representative mix of citizens. Again, the executive summary is here.

FEC, lobbyists, campaign reform

Two Post editorials today on campaign finance and election issues. The first criticizes the recent attention to lobbyists within the Obama and McCain campaigns, and includes a strong argument for public financing. My take: the Post is mostly right. They're wrong to dismiss the lobbyist question entirely--it IS a powerful illustration of how power players and powerful influences move within Washington and through federal campaigns--but they're right that it's not a long-term prescription for change.

This is, as we suspect both candidates know, a silly exercise. Lobbyists are a symptom of a larger problem that can't be fixed by turning them into political pariahs. The real problem is the distorting influence on public policy of moneyed interests; lobbyists are merely a particularly efficient delivery vehicle for the money that candidates need to satisfy their fundraising habits. The most effective cure would be to free lawmakers of this addiction by providing for public financing of campaigns, a solution that is, admittedly, a long way off.

The second piece takes a look at the FEC -- or lack thereof -- and highlights one of the most egregiously partisan nomination maneuvers in an agency that is defined by partisan maneuvers.