Clean Elections, The Only Way to Clean Up Our Political System.

If you haven't noticed, our political system is broken! Today, specialinterest money and deep-pocketed fat cats control our government.

Imagine a New York City Council where your opinions and interests are more important than those of lobbyists and deep-pocketed special interests. Full public financing of public elections can rid our political system of the undue influence of special interests, allow more well-meaning candidates to run for office, and force all elected officials to be accountable to their constituents.

In today’s campaign environment, candidates for public office must raise tremendous amounts of money to get elected and re-elected. Many spend more time raising money than they spend with their constituents! And, as the cost of running a campaign is increasing, less and less time is being spent learning what issues are important in our communities.

If candidates are reliant upon private donations to make it to office, who do you think they’re going to serve once they get there — not the local residents, but the fat-cats and big-wigs who provided large campaign donations. In our own District 19, for example, real estate developers and real estate special interests have been giving thousands of dollars to a candidate who is a registered lobbyist for those same real estate developers and real estate special interests. Now, who do you think he would look out for if given the power of your City Council seat?

As of right now in City Council races, candidates have an option whereby the City matches their campaign donations on a $6-to-1 basis. While this has been a positive step, it does not alleviate the problem entirely. The answer is full public funding of elections, also known as Clean Elections! This provides transparency and honesty in campaigns and government. It also opens the door to public office for many qualified citizens, who otherwise would not be able to afford exorbitant campaign costs. And, as if that isn’t good enough, Clean Elections is an inexpensive system! Ultimately, it is an answer to the problems of inefficient, out-of-touch, and narrow-minded government officials. The states of Maine, Arizona, and Connecticut have already adopted Clean Elections for all state elections. The cities of Albuquerque, New Mexico and Portland, Oregon have also instituted full public financing for all city elections. In addition, Clean Elections has given great candidates such as Arizona's former two-term governor Janet Napolitano an opportunity to serve her state that she wouldn't have had without a Clean Election system. Today, Ms. Napolitano has risen to the position of United States Secretary of Homeland Security.

Read on to learn more about how it works and why the world’s greatest city — our New York City — should take this important step.

Clean Elections…

Clean Elections is a simple program whereby candidates agree to raise only a small amount of “seed money” from residents of their district and to abide by overall campaign spending limits. In exchange, a candidate that demonstrates that he or she has legitimate support from within his or her district will qualify for public funds to run a campaign in the public election. The candidate will not find himself or herself in the pockets of the special interests and will not have to spend hundreds of hours trying to raise money for the campaign. Most important, rather than wining and dining big money donors and special interests, candidates can spend more time meeting the people they seek to represent and learning what issues are important to them.

Here is a quick primer on how Clean Elections would work for a New York City Council race:
In order to get his or her name on the ballot, and to qualify for public financing of his or her campaign, a prospective City Council candidate would have to get signatures and small contributions of between $5 and $50 from 250 residents of his or her district.

The small contributions from district residents would constitute a “seed fund” for the campaign. The seed fund could not total over $12,500.

Once the signatures and contributions have been verified, the campaign would receive $100,000 in public funds. Campaign spending would be limited to the public funds plus the seed fund.

The cost to New York City could actually be less that the current system run by the New York City Campaign Finance Board for the current “matching funds” program. And, the cost of compliance and oversight would be considerably less than the current system. Clean Elections could actually save New York City money by lessening the government bureaucracy of the current New York City Campaign Finance Board. Finally, money would be saved because elected officials wouldn’t be pressured to spend our tax money to benefit the big-money special interests who got them elected!

The citizens of Queens and the rest of New York City acknowledge the influence of special interests. While the current matching funds system has been a useful first step, it is time to adopt Clean Elections. You deserve to have your government serve you!