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The run-up to this year's midterm election smells of scandal and corruption, which raises the question: Can anyone stop the influence of big money and big influence on political campaigns?

Before, you say "of course not," check out our special hour-long investigation into the fight to keep American elections free and fair across the country. Airing less than three weeks before Americans go to the polls, "Votes for Sale?" will spotlight the so-called clean elections movement, a radical public-funding experiment adopted in Maine and Arizona to revolutionize how campaigns are conducted. It works like this: candidates for public office receive a flat sum of money from the government to finance their campaign. In return, the candidates agree to use almost no private funds to run their elections.

Pushing special interest money out of the election process may do more than clean things up. It could also open the door for a variety of people who care about democracy to run for office with realistic hopes of winning. Case in point: Arizona State Representative Doug Quelland, a conservative Republican who supports clean elections by his own example. With a background in public school teaching and running a handful of neighborhood businesses, including a lawnmower repair shop, Quelland captured voter interest door-to-door armed only with his passion and point of view. He's now running for his third term in the state legislature and still sports his trademark handlebar moustache. "I don't want to owe anybody anything. I don't want to have to have the special interests. I just want to do it and not beholden to anybody," Rep. Quelland told NOW.

Quelland's state of Arizona is one of the biggest clean election battlegrounds, where the nation's only "clean-elected" governor, Janet Napolitano, sits in the statehouse. Governor Napolitano talks to NOW's David Brancaccio about her strong convictions regarding clean elections. "I think what Clean Elections allows you to do is be a better candidate and a better office holder, because you're not all the time having to raise money," Napolitano said.

In California, a very contentious debate is underway over Proposition 89, a clean election initiative about which voters will have the final say on November 7.

The trailer is one Youtube.


The show airs tonight.

Quote of the Day

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.

-Sarah E. Clark

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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.

-Nick Nyhart, Executive Director of Public Campaign

What Big Money Buys In Sacramento

From Channel 89:

Fight Corruption

Mike Kirchubel says:

Almost all voters, regardless of party affiliation, agree that there is entirely too much greed and corruption in Sacramento and Washington these days. Most of us are just plain disgusted. Granted, politicians need money for their signs, ads, and commercials in order to be elected or re-elected; unfortunately, today’s high-stakes Pay-to-Play is completely dominated by corporate lobbyists. We ordinary folks have been priced out of the access game. Furthermore, these lobbyists have vastly different agendas than you or I. While we spend our days working for our dollars, they spend theirs dreaming up novel ways to snatch those dollars from us. To them, politicians are simply highly paid employees facilitating the exchange. We should make politicians cover their expensive suits with sponsor patches, like NASCAR drivers, so we can all tell where their loyalties truly lie.

If you’ve ever thought, “There must be a better way;” 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, Prop 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! Yes on 89.

There is a better way. Clean money elections are working in Maine, they are working in Arizona, and with your support this November we can have fair elections in California.

Consumer Federation of California and Proposition 89

Richard Holober, Executive Director of the Consumer Federation of California, has a great column in the California Progress Report:

Proposition 89: Take the "For Sale" sign off the State Capitol

Since 2004, Chevron gave $3 million in political contributions in California. For a company that made a record $14 billion in profits last year, it was money well spent. Despite public indignation, big oil crushed a proposed state tax on windfall oil profits.

During one 18-month period, banks, insurance companies and other financial interests contributed $8.8 million to state politicians. They defeated financial privacy legislation that enjoyed the support of 90% of California voters.

Phone companies gave $20 million to the governor and Sacramento candidates since 2000. Their generosity bought them new Public Utilities Commissioners, which promptly buried telephone consumer protection regulations just after being adopted by their predecessors.

Our campaign finance system has produced the best government that money can buy. [...]

This November, we can take the “For Sale” sign off the state Capitol. The Consumer Federation of California supports Proposition 89, the Clean Money Initiative, because we must change the rules of politics before ordinary Californians will have a chance to put our interests on an even footing with big corporate donors.

Prop 89 would create a Clean Money Election system similar to the ones that now exist in Arizona, Connecticut and Maine.

Please, go read the whole story.

Featured Letter to the Editor

San Rafael's Dan Farthing in the Marin Independent Journal:

Prop. 89 will clean up politics

The IJ's "Fill-up of the future" article (Aug. 25) was encouraging indeed; imagine what biodiesel could do if it were available cheaply and used throughout Marin and elsewhere. Less foreign oil, clean air, invigorated regional agriculture.

But with special interest groups and their lobbyists controlling Sacramento, biodiesel and similar issues aren't likely to get much support without the passage of Proposition 89 on Nov. 7.

Proposition 89 would provide optional public financing of campaigns for any legislative candidate, who then, if elected, would not be under the influence of campaign contributors. Legislators could then vote according to their own consciences for such worthwhile projects as biodiesel, other alternative fuels, and universal health care.

This "clean money" system works in Arizona, where the governor and most other statewide elected officials were elected with clean money under a similar law.

Let's vote "yes" on Proposition 89 for good government, with legislators accountable only to the voters.

On issue after issue, it is the big money special interests blocking reform. Ending the auction in Sacramento is the first step towards sound policy for California.

Make Elections About Voters

While not specific to California's Proposition 89, Patrick Bosold lays out a solid case for clean money campaigns in the Des Moines Register:

Clean elections make elections about voters, not campaign donors. Candidates can spend their time talking to constituents instead of spending countless hours wooing major donors. Once in office, clean-elections officials are no longer beholden to special interests and lobbyists.

Candidates who participate in clean elections are supported by voters. In Maine, 83 percent of the state Senate and 77 percent of the state House is made up of legislators who ran as clean-elections candidates. In Arizona, 10 out of 11 statewide offices are held by clean-elections candidates.

I'm very concerned about the role of money in politics and the scandals in Washington. The best way to make elections fair and to restore accountability to people is to implement public financing of elections.

Mr. Bosold isn't the only voter who is concerned about the role of big money in politics. We need reform.