"This current system of financing elections is corrupt to its core, with the voice of the average voter being drowned out by the roar of Big Money. As a result, voters turn away from politics and become even more cynical about the possibility of changing the system."
-Ariana Huffington, who is speaking on Prop 89 and other issues at 7PM tonight, Cal Poly's Spanos Theatre
According to Northeast Action, a New England-based organization that has been at the forefront of efforts to achieve Clean Elections in the U.S. since the early 1990s, women are underrepresented in American government due to many factors, including a history of discrimination and disenfranchisement as well as a relative lack of access to money to run political campaigns.
CNA released a study in September showing that big-money donors have spent $1.7 billion in the past five years to influence state elections. After analyzing 2.4 million records on file with the secretary of state, CNA found 52,000 contributions of $5,000 or more had been made to candidates for statewide offices and the Legislature and to ballot-initiative campaigns. The average amount of those large contributions was $33,000.
Clean Elections specifically reduces the influence of big money on elections and enables people of modest means to run for office. In California, Prop 89 supports candidates who reject private fundraising by providing them with a set amount of public funding. The cost is paid by a two-tenths of one percent increase in the state corporate tax rate.
Proposition 89 is patterned on Clean Money initiatives that are now law in Arizona and Maine. In Arizona, voters approved a Clean Money initiative in 1998. In every year since the adoption of Clean Elections, more women have run for the Arizona State Legislature and won. In 2004, women accounted for 40 percent of publicly financed candidates. Arizona’s current governor, elected as a Clean Money candidate, is only the state’s third female governor.
If you've ever thought, "there must be a better way;," or wondered why corporations with billions in profits legally pay less in taxes than you, or swore you would "never vote for those crooks ever again," rejoice!
Proposition 89, the Clean Money and Fair Elections Act, is coming soon to a ballot near you. If we all work hard and get this passed in November, Proposition 89 will allow candidates to remain "clean" with public financing for their campaigns. Our representatives would actually represent us, not the special interest lobbyists. Imagine, taxation with representation. What a revolutionary concept!
Here in San Diego, I feel like I am at an epicenter of the money and politics plague that has sickened the democratic process all over the country. A local Congressman, Duke Cunningham, has gone to jail as part of an ongoing national scandal. The cost of political campaigns is going up, up, up at every level and that is certainly more true in California than anywhere else in the country, and voters badly want change in our political system.
But, thankfully, here in California, Proposition 89 is on the ballot
Proposition 89 offers Californians a chance to take back control of the political system from the lobbyists and deep pocket campaign donors and join with voters in seven other states and two cities that have adopted Clean Elections. By passing Proposition 89, voters in California would send a clear signal to politicians across the country that they demand meaningful campaign reform.
A dream team of campaign consultants has been assembled to fight Prop. 89, the public financing initiative on the November ballot. Among them: Gale Kaufman, the Democratic consultant who led the campaign to defeat Schwarzenegger's special election initiatives; Goddard Clausen, which helped kill off the universal preschool initiative in June; and the firm of veteran initiative man Frank Schubert. Among the interest groups lining up against the measure are the California Teachers Assn., the California State Council of Laborers and the California Chamber of Commerce. Almost makes you want to support it. Last week, the League of Women Voters and California Common Cause did just that.
"The strength of a reform can usually be assessed by the status quo's resistance to it. California Proposition 89, which would create full public financing of state elections in a state that comprises that world's fifth largest economy, has an unprecedented alliance of corporations and unions in an uproar."
"Events in Sacramento are strictly for the third house. They aren't civilian events. They are events for people who understand why they have to give."
"I've always believed that big special interest money in politics creates a system in which people lose faith in their government. Proposition 89 addresses this problem head-on. I urge a yes vote on Proposition 89."
"There is a very radical measure which would, I believe, work a substantial improvement in our system of conducting a campaign, although I am well aware that it will take some time for people so to familiarize themselves with such a proposal as to be willing to consider its adoption. The need for collecting large campaign funds would vanish if Congress provided an appropriation for the proper and legitimate expenses of each of the great national parties, an appropriation ample enough to meet the necessity for thorough organization and machinery, which requires a large expenditure of money. Then the stipulation should be made that no party receiving campaign funds from the Treasury should accept more than a fixed amount from any individual subscriber or donor; and the necessary publicity for receipts and expenditures could without difficulty be provided."
"It should be evident to any even halfway objective observer that the Legislature is an abjectly dysfunctional body, chronically incapable of responding effectively to the issues that arise from a fast-growing, fast-changing state. That malaise has many roots, but one of them is the essentially closed nature of legislative politics, which are disconnected from the socioeconomic reality of the state and driven by the wishes of a relative handful of powerful interest groups."
"One of the reasons that people don't vote is they think the big-moneyed interests run everything anyway, so what's the point?"
With the news that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger will veto universal health care, let's take a look at the numbers:
| 6,000,000 | - | Uninsured Californians the bill would have covered |
| 8,000,000 | - | Dollars the bill would have saved annually |
| 4,000,000 | - | Dollars opponents contributed to Schwarzenegger |
"Schwarzenegger's announcement shows he has listened to the big donors who have put millions into his campaign coffers, not to the people worried about health care costs and the rising number of uninsured workers."
I don't worry so much as a Republican, but as a citizen, and there's one word: "the blogosphere"...that's what scares me. There are angry people on the left and angry people on the right. And I'm not sure if I want to see that anger harnessed in reforming our government. I like the firewall, if you will. And that's one interesting thing about Prop 89, the campaign finance reform measure...notice how that has bridged together some rather disparate groups. Among the leaders opposing that are the California Teachers Association and the California Chamber of Commerce. Why? They are very vested interests in Sacramento, they don't want the rules changed.
"Apathy can only be overcome by enthusiasm, and enthusiasm can only be aroused by two things: First, an ideal which takes the imagination by storm, and second, a definite intelligible plan for carrying that ideal into practice."
1)
Strict contribution and expenditure limits
