Pat Powers is told by his sponsors to portray the proposal of the bipartisan South Dakotans for Ethics Reform to create “Democracy Credits” to publicly fund South Dakota campaigns as “ridiculous bullsh*t” that no one would support.
Um… Maine supports public funding of campaigns. What has Maine gotten for it’s trouble? The most blue-collar, anti-big-money legislature in the country:
Last year, the book White-Collar Government concluded Maine had the most blue-collar legislature in the country. Many of Katz’s colleagues are school teachers and farmers, and he attributes this to an initiative passed by voters in 1996 that established a novel public campaign finance system branded “Clean Elections.” The system allotted $2 million a year for state legislative and gubernatorial candidates who wanted to run without relying on large donations from private groups. To qualify for the taxpayer-backed war chest, candidates have to collect small contributions from individuals until they hit a certain fundraising threshold — a total of $500 for a house candidate, $1,500 for a senate candidate and $200,000 for a gubernatorial candidate.
After meeting the threshold, candidates receive an initial distribution of public funds, which range from $486 for a house candidate running in an uncontested primary to $7,177 for a senate candidate running in a contested general election. Gubernatorial candidates receive either $200,000 or $400,000 in a primary, depending on whether they face an opponent, and $600,000 in a general election.
Since the system started operating in 2000, an increasing number of candidates — even in the high-profile races for governor — came to rely on public financing. At its peak in the 2006 and 2008 elections, 81 percent of legislative candidates opted to use public financing for their campaigns. The system even caught the eye of public officials and advocacy groups in other parts of the country, and several states, including Arizona, Connecticut and North Carolina, later modeled their own public financing program after Maine’s [J.B. Wogan, “Maine’s Struggle to Keep Elections Clean and Free of Big Money,” Governing, 2015.10.21].
Wow! An empirical example of Rick Weiland and Don Frankenfeld’s proposal for offering public dollars to support political campaigns doing exactly what it intends: helping candidates become less dependent on big private donations and perhaps more responsive to the general public… just the way democracy is supposed to work. I wonder what self-interested partisan vulgarities Powers will bark on behalf of his big-money sponsors….
Powers will delete his pile before he will preside over the dominoes falling in SDGOP.
Way to go, Maine. It seems odd that AZ would consider this. Their level of corruption is high but so is South Dakota’s. Maybe when a state is so lop-sided politically they don’t think leveling the playing field will damage their brand. But, how would Republicans know what to endorse if the campaign donors don’t tell them how to vote? lol
I am really on the fence with this, Cory.
There are somethings about it I like and somethings that give a a knot in my gut.
What gets your stomach in knots about it MC? It would allow for a wider breadth of candidates. And of course it doesn’t change the nature of the jungle primaries in the house and such.
As Mike Q asks, MC, tell me more about the knot in your gut.
In my perfect world, there would only be public funding for political campaigns, candidates could not raise funds themselves or even spend their own money. Also there would be a limited amount of time allowed to spend campaigning, similar to how many European countries regulate campaigns.
I’d also love to be able to cripple the influence that lobbyists and the industries they represent have over our government officials. The amount of influence that is bought with all that money is what is really behind the inability of our federal government to run our country effectively. While I think there was a beneficial intent behind the system of lobbying at the start, it’s been corrupted so much that I feel we might be better off if lobbying was no longer allowed.
But that’s just my two cents. Gotta give props to Maine for having the courage to make their state government truly more representative of its citizens.
Could you imagine how things in South Dakota might be if the manager of the local grocery store, the county librarian, or a factory worker could actually manage to run for office on an equal playing field with the lawyers, doctors, bankers, business owners, and retired farmers that have the time and/or cash advantage now?
That’s exactly the idea, Travis: allow every citizen equal opportunity to run for office and serve the public. One should not have to be independently wealthy to run for and hold public office.
I don’t care for the ‘democracy dollars’ idea. I would much rather be campaigning for people’s vote, than asking for one of their vouchers.
MC, is your complaint unique to the Democracy Credits proposal? What’s the difference between asking for citizens to apply their Democracy Credits to your campaign and asking for individual donors and PACs to send you checks? Running for office and leading conversations about the issues facing the state is much more fun than asking for money, but doesn’t every candidate have to do that? And isn’t it possible that, as seen in Maine, candidates who accept public financing can spend less time fundraising (and tailoring their messages to appease the wealthiest donors) and more time talking about the issues?