Arizona's Model Clean Money Law Under Attack

[GreenPartyVoter]

The most important non-candidate electoral contest will take place in Arizona this November. There, right-wing Fat Cats have joined with special interest groups representing, among others, banking, insurance and real estate developers in an effort to overturn a Clean Money/Clean Elections (CM/CE) campaign law, one of the most successful campaign reform laws in the country and a model for future congressional legislation. The effort, Proposition 106, also has the active support of the religious right, which evidently wants the rich and powerful, rather than the meek and poor, to inherit Arizona if not the earth.

To make their effort palatable to the public, the right-wingers are calling their effort, “No Taxpayer Money for Politicians,” arguing, hypocritically, that giving taxpayer money to politicians takes away money from programs that benefit the people. But these are the very same political groups that routinely oppose social and economic reforms that do benefit people. Moreover, their slogan is a lie. About two-thirds of the money used to fund the Clean Money law comes from criminal justice fines with the rest coming from voluntary taxpayer donations.

In response, a grassroots coalition, endorsed by a bipartisan group of civic leaders and elected officials, including Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Governor Janet Napolitano (who was elected under the Clean Money system), are fighting back to save the law. In a joint statement, McCain and Napolitano wrote, “Proposition 106 poses a clear choice between the people’s interest and the special interests. This measure repeals Arizona’s successful campaign finance reform laws, which are among the most innovative and effective in the nation.”

Arizona’s Clean Money law, in effect since 1998, achieves two important democratic goals. It successfully gets special interest money out of politics and it creates a level financial playing field for all “qualified” candidates for statewide and state legislative office, challengers and incumbents alike. Candidates qualify for public funding by collecting a specific number of $5 contributions to prove they have popular support. The principle here is that it’s the number of people willing to make a financial contributions rather than the amount of money a candidate raises that is the measure of popular support. Those candidates who accept public financing agree to accept no other private money beyond the $5 qualifying contributions.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0716-06.htm