The Fair Elections Now Act
We are currently working with Common Cause to build support in California for the Fair Elections Now Act, a federal bill that would create a system of full public campaign financing for all U.S. House and Senate offices.
Barack Obama was an early co-sponsor of the bill and John McCain was a big supporter of Clean Elections in Arizona, giving us a genuine chance of passing this bill under the next presidential administration. We believe that by giving candidates and elected officials the opportunity to run competitive campaigns free from the constraints of private fundraising, "Clean Elections", or "full public campaign financing" would dramatically change how politics is done in the U.S. Please sign up on our list to keep in touch about his incredibly important campaign or visit Common Cause's web site for more information.
By unanimous support of the Ethics Commission, and by a vote of 8-to-3 at the Board of Supervisors, legislation to dramatically improve the Board of Supervisors public campaign financing program passed on Nov. 6, 2007!!
What are Voter Owned Elections?
The concept of Voter Owned Elections (or 'Public Campaign Financing') is simple:
the public helps fund the campaigns of candidates who can
demonstrate a wide base of public support by collecting a
large number of small donations. In exchange, candidates agree
to limit their private fundraising. Voter Owned Elections
(also known as 'public financing of campaigns') is a good
government reform that helps ensure that candidates are accountable
to the public, rather than private interests, and creates
a situation where all serious candidates have enough resources
to get their message into the hands of voters.
- Gives voters the opportunity to make a decision based on the merits of the candidates rather than their fundraising abilities
- Ensures candidates are accountable to the public rather than private interests
- Ensures minority groups have a fair opportunity to participate in elective and governmental processes
- Significantly reduces the amount of time that candidates need to spend raising money -- giving
them more time to focus on serving the public
- Saves money by reducing inappropriate giveaways to campaign contributors
What are we doing about it?
In 2000, voter-approved Proposition O created a public campaign financing program for Board of Supervisors races. Steven Hill, our senior advisor, was instrumental in that effort. In 2005 our organization was created to spearhead the successful effort to expand public campaign financing to the San Francisco Mayoral race. Since then we successfully defended against a proposed raid on the public financing fund, and then helped lobby for the passage of a bill which dramatically improved the Board of Supervisors public campaign financing program. Recently, we've joined forces with Common Cause to work on a bill, called the Fair Elections Now Act, that would create a full public campaign financing system for U.S. House and Senate races.
The influence of big money in elections has an inordinate
amount of influence on politicians through campaign donations,
which in turn leads to a manipulation of public policy --
often against the interests of the public. Public financing has been successful in reducing this problem not only in San Francisco’s
elections, but also in Los Angeles’
mayoral and city council races, New York City’s mayoral
and city council races, and Arizona and Maine’s state
elections, including elections for governor.
Web site design and construction: Robert Arnow
Design Studio
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