Publicly funded elections

Publicly funded elections are designed to reduce corruption by funding elections with federal tax revenue or income tax donations as opposed to corporate campaign contributions or individuals with disproportionate wealth. The purpose is to remove undue monetary influence on politicians. It is an attempt to move toward one person one vote in a democracy.

In the United States

Methods of publicly funded election legislation have been adopted in Maine, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Arizona, North Carolina, New Mexico, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, and Massachusetts. In addition, public funding of elections have been incorporated at the municipal level in several cities. Wisconsin's 33 year old program was defunded by the state legislature in 2011 by Gov. Scott Walker and the legislature's joint finance committee. California recently overturned its ban on publicly funded elections, but charter cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles were already exempt from the ban and already have some form of public financing.[1]

Some of these laws have run into constitutional problems in the courts. When the Citizens United v. FEC decision defined money as a form of speech, the ability to limit campaign spending and publicly finance campaigns in cities and states came into question. Some portions (such as state supplemental funds for publicly financed candidates whose opponents outspend them) of the Vermont system were found newly unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Randall v. Sorrell., but the core program of full funding of governor and lieutenant governor candidates remains in place. Portions of Connecticut's statute were held unconstitutional in 2009, on the grounds that it unfairly discriminated against third party and independent candidates, but the core program of full funding of constitutional and legislative candidates remains in place.[2] In July 2010 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld portions of the District court's order but allowed the core program to continue.[3]

On June 27, 2011, ruling in the consolidated cases Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett and McComish v. Bennett, the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional the matching-funds provision of the Arizona law.[4] The decision cast doubt on the new constitutionality of similar provisions in Maine, Wisconsin, and elsewhere. As a result, the Wisconsin legislature eliminated funding for its judicial elections in 2011.

Additionally, voters have not supported publicly funded elections in several referendums. In Massachusetts the system was repealed after a 2002 advisory initiative in which voters voted nearly 2 to 1 against using government funds to pay for political campaigns. Portland, Oregon's program was narrowly repealed by voters in a 2010 referendum.[5] In 2008, a Clean Elections bill, the California Fair Elections Act (AB583) passed the California Assembly and Senate and was signed by Governor Schwarzenegger. Because of the ban on publicly funded elections, the law had to be approved by voters in an initiative in June 2010. On June 8, 2010, California voters defeated the measure by 57% to 43%.[6] An earlier Clean Elections ballot initiative, Proposition 89 was also defeated in California in 2006, by 74% against to 26% in favor of a corporate tax to fund elections. A Clean Elections ballot initiative in Alaska failed by a 64% to 35% margin in August 2008.[7]

In 2013, North Carolina repealed its popular "Voter Owned Elections" program of public financing of judicial campaigns with 900 people arrested at the Moral Monday protests in Raleigh.[8]

Comprehensive public funding systems have been in effect in Arizona and Maine since 2000. In Maine, since enactment, approximately three quarters of state legislators have run their campaigns with government funds provided by the state program.[9] In Arizona, a majority of the state house and both the Republican and Democratic candidates for Governor ran publicly financed campaigns in 2006. There has not yet been a statewide election in Maine in which both the Republican and Democratic candidates were financed through the public financing system.

In Other Countries

The United Kingdom, Norway, India, Russia, Brazil, Nigeria, Sweden are some jurisdictions where methods of publicly funded election legislation and the reasons for the need of alternatives to privately funded campaigns have been considered. http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/24/world/global-campaign-finance/index.html

"Clean Elections": Differences from traditional reforms

"Clean Elections" is the name supporters have given to some public financing efforts, used most prominently in Maine and Arizona.

Some Clean Elections laws provide a government grant to candidates who agree to limit their spending and private fundraising. Candidates participating in a Clean Elections system are required to meet certain qualification criteria, which usually includes collecting a number of signatures and small contributions (generally determined by statute and set at $5 in both Maine and Arizona) before the candidate can receive public support. In most Clean Elections programs, these qualifying contributions must be given by constituents. To receive the government campaign grant, "Clean Candidates" must agree to forgo all other fundraising and accept no other private or personal funds. Candidates who choose not to participate are subject to limits on their fundraising, typically in the form of limits on the size of contributions they may accept and the sources of those contributions (such as limits on corporate or union contributions), and detailed reporting requirements.

In the US, in order to comply with Buckley v. Valeo, participation by candidates is not legally required. Originally, many Clean Elections programs provided that publicly financed candidates who were outspent by a privately funded candidate could receive additional funds (sometimes called "rescue funds") to match their privately funded opponent, up to a cap, with the intent of assuring that a candidate running with private funding would not outspend his government funded opponent. However, in Arizona Free Enterprise Club's Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, the U.S. Supreme Court held that such "rescue fund" provisions unconstitutionally burdened the rights of speakers by intentionally limiting the effectiveness of their own speech. Thus since Bennett clean elections systems in the U.S. have been forced to abandon the "rescue funds" approach.

US supporters

In the US, SB 752, the Fair Elections Now Act, calling for publicly funded elections in U.S. Senate campaigns, was sponsored in the 111th Congress (2009–10) by Senators: Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Arlen Specter (D-PA).[10] A companion bill, H.R. 1826, was introduced in the House, sponsored by John Larson (D-CT), Chellie Pingree (D-ME), and Walter Jones (R-NC). Unlike the Clean Elections laws in Maine and Arizona, H.R. 1826 did not include the "rescue funds" provision, perhaps due to concern about constitutionality in the wake of the Davis decision. Neither bill moved out of Committee.

Others who have endorsed clean elections include:

  • Cecil Heftel (D-HI), former U.S. Representative
  • Ned Lamont (D-CT), former U.S. Senate candidate
  • John McCain (R-AZ), former 2008 U.S. Republican Presidential Candidate and Senator [15][16] (McCain has also expressed opposition to a national version of the system and has not endorsed or co-sponsored the bills introduced in the U.S. Senate.[17])
  • Ralph Nader of Connecticut, U.S. Independent Presidential Candidate[18]
  • Janet Napolitano (D-AZ), former Governor, former Secretary of Homeland Security
  • Bill Richardson (D-NM), former 2008 U.S. Democratic Presidential Candidate and Governor
  • Eliot Spitzer (D-NY), former Governor [19]

See also

Country-specific (International):

References

  1. ↑ Lueders, Bill (2011-06-30). "Campaign financing dead in Wisconsin". WisconsinWatch.org. Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. Retrieved 2014-01-12.
  2. ↑ "Connecticut Campaign Finance Law Ruled Unconstitutional". Wall Street Journal. 28 August 2009. (Subscription required (help)).
  3. ↑ Green Party of Connecticut v. Garfield (2d Cir. 13 July 2010). Text
  4. ↑ Vogel, Kenneth P. (2011-06-27). "Narrow ruling on campaign finance". Politico.
  5. ↑ "November 2010 General Election - Official Results". The City of Portland Oregon.
  6. ↑ Kanalley, Craig (2010-06-09). "Huffington Post". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2011-01-05.
  7. ↑ "2008 Primary Election Results". Anchorage Daily News. 21 October 2008. Archived from the original on 2009-01-02. Retrieved 2011-01-05.
  8. ↑ Smith, Adam (2013-07-26). "North Carolina Legislature Repeals Popular "Voter Owned Elections" Program". Public Campaign. Archived from the original on 2013-10-09.
  9. ↑ "Maine Ethics Commission: Maine Clean Election Act (MCEA)". Maine.gov. Retrieved 2011-01-05.
  10. ↑ "S. 752: Fair Elections Now Act". GovTrack.us. Retrieved 2011-01-05.
  11. ↑ "April 13, 2009". The Nation. 2009-04-13. Retrieved 2011-01-05.
  12. ↑ https://berniesanders.com/press-release/sanders-proposes-public-funding-of-campaigns/
  13. ↑ John Edwards for President-One Democracy Initiative: Returning Washington To Regular People Archived 2007-10-13 at the Wayback Machine.
  14. ↑ https://freebeacon.com/politics/gillibrand-says-corporations-own-washington-calls-publicly-funded-elections/
  15. ↑ "Sen. McCain Embraces Clean Elections In Arizona Big Boost To Public Financing Seen". Publicampaign.org. 12 June 2002. Archived from the original on 2011-05-25.
  16. ↑ "Dialing for Clean Dollars". Thenation.com. Retrieved 2011-01-05.
  17. ↑ "Candidate Challenge: John McCain". YouTube. 2007-12-05. Retrieved 2011-01-05.
  18. ↑ http://jamaicaplaingazette.com/2009/11/09/nader_to_jp_the_super-rich_can_save_us/
  19. ↑ "One New York" (PDF). State of the State 2007. p. 7. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-03-26. Full public financing must be the ultimate goal of our reform effort.

Legislation

Studies

Press coverage

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