The state of reform

States across the country have been successful in lessening the influence of big money on politics, says Micah Sifry, senior analyst for Public Campaign, a nonprofit, non-partisan organization that aims to reduce the role of special-interest money in American politics. Sifry is a former editor of The Nation magazine and the author of Spoiling for a Fight: Third-Party Politics in America.

Legislatures have got to start small, he says, if they want to increase voter power, decrease the amount of time candidates spend fundraising and lessen corruption in the political system.

First, campaign contribution reporting has to be tightened up, Sifry says in a recent phone interview with the RN&R. This means that contribution reports must be timely, accessible to the public and used in a format that allows individuals or media organizations to sort through the data. Paper reports are anachronistic, he says. The only reason not to have computer forms is to keep analysts from getting at the information.

“Even the opponents of reform essentially claim, ‘All we need is disclosure,’ or ‘Let’s be open about who is giving to whom, and then the voters can make an informed decision,’ he says. “It’s difficult for them to argue that in the 21st century that we should still be doing paper disclosure and making it harder for people to find out [about candidates].”

Here in Nevada, the secretary of state recently started a pilot program for online contribution and expense reporting.

Some four states—Maine, Arizona, Massachusetts and Vermont—have taken the ultimate step: full public funding of elections. There are 14 others that do partially funded campaigns, but Sifry says unless the state funds at least 80 percent of the election, the positive effects are negligible.

Publicly funded elections generally work like this: State-office candidates must agree not to exceed campaign-spending limits and to use state funds for their election. They generally must qualify by raising a large sum of small donations. In Maine, for example, the number of qualifying contributions is based on the population of the voters in the district and varies for each office. The amounts the candidate receives also vary from office to office, but it’s based on the amount candidates have spent in years past. The Maine Clean Election Act was begun by citizen referendum, which put the reform on the 1996 ballot.

Candidates also can get some matching funds, if they are facing privately funded big spenders, or if they are being targeted by independent expenditures in which the amount is more than the amount they were getting in their public financing grant. In Maine, you can get up to double the initial public grant; in Arizona, Sifry says, it’s up to triple.

States use other methods to decrease the influence of special interests. Oregon and others have voter guides, which provide the candidates’ positions on various issues. It’s sent to voters by the Secretary of State’s Office.

Some states, in which legislators have control of cable television systems, have forced the cable companies to broadcast debates. That lowers the amount that candidates have to spend on television commercials, which decreases their dependence on special-interest money.

Finally, some states are passing voter-registration reform. Californians, for example, will vote on an Election Day voter registration reform in November. It will make it easier for young people and people who move around a lot to vote by allowing them to register on Election Day. If it passes, California will be the seventh state to have this provision. In Nevada, you must register well before Election Day.

Sifry says the Wall Street implosion, the Clinton fundraising scandal, and corporate-fraud scandals have made the public ready to clean up politics.

"The public is demanding it," he says. "Politicians are finding they can’t be on the wrong side of this issue. There are ways to ‘beat the boss.' "