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

Imagine a New York City Council where your opinions and interests are more important than those of lobbyists and deep-pocket special interests.  Full public financing of public elections can rid our political system of the undue influence of special interests, allow more good candidates to run for office and require elected officials to be accountable to the constituents they are supposed to serve.

If you haven't noticed, our political system is broken!  Today, special interest money and deep-pocketed donors control our government.  Elected officials must raise tremendous amounts of money to get elected and then re-elected.  Elected officials and candidates spend more time raising money than they spend with the constituents they are supposed to represent.   Elected officials and candidates spend more time raising money than they spend learning what issues are important to the communities they are supposed to serve.  In addition, elected officials are indebted to the special interests that helped get them elected in the first place.  Here in District 19, real estate developers and real estate special interests are giving thousands of dollars to a candidate who is a registered lobbyist for the same real estate developers and real estate special interests.

Full public financing of public elections, also known as Clean Elections, is the best way to combat the problem.  Clean Elections help improve the fairness, transparency and honesty of elections.  It allows good candidates who care about their community but may not have friends in high places, or have a father with friends in high places, to serve their community.  It makes candidates and elected officials accountable to their constituents and not to big money donors and special interests.  Instead of answering to special interests such as real estate developers, oil companies, pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies, elected officials would only have to answer to their constituents.

Three states, Arizona, Maine and Connecticut, have instituted full public financing for all state elections including elections for Governor.  Vermont has instituted a public finance system for the election of its Governor and Lieutenant Governor. The cities of Albuquerque, New Mexico and Portland, Oregon have instituted full public financing for all city elections.  In each of these states or cities, Clean Elections have helped clean up the corrupting influence of special interests in government and has made elected officials more accountable to the people that voted them to office.  In addition, Clean Elections has given great candidates such as Arizona's two-term governor Janet Napolitano an opportunity to serve her state that she wouldn't have had without a Clean Election system.

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.  More importantly, instead of spending time wining and dining big money donors and special interests, candidates will be able to spend more time meeting the people they seek to represent and learning what issues are important to the people they seek to serve.

Here's a quick primer on how Clean Elections would work for a New York City Council race:

1. 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 500 residents of his or her district.
2. The small contributions from district residents would constitute a “seed fund” for the campaign.  The seed fund could not total over $12,500.
3. 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.
4. The cost to New York City could actually be less that the current system run by the New York City Campaign Finance Board.  The funds expended would not be much more than is currently expended through the current “matching funds” program.  However, the cost of compliance and oversight would be considerably less than the current system, allowing for a streamlining of the Campaign Finance Board and a lifting of much of the compliance burden currently placed upon New York City political campaigns.  Clean Elections could actually save New York City money as well as lessening the government bureaucracy currently involved in the 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.

Many people complain about the influence of special interests in politics and that elected officials no longer care about the people who actually vote for them.  Clean Elections is a necessary first step to reforming our political system, taking our government away from the special interests and giving it back to the people it is supposed to serve.Imagine a New York City Council where your opinions and interests are more important than those of lobbyists and deep-pocket special interests.  Full public financing of public elections can rid our political system of the undue influence of special interests, allow more good candidates to run for office and require elected officials to be accountable to the constituents they are supposed to serve.