There’s fresh evidence, from the legislative floor to the
voting booths to the halls of academia, that the Clean Money/Clean
Elections model of full public financing is making a dramatic
difference in the politics of Arizona and Maine. In a year when
we are likely to experience the first-ever billion-dollar presidential
campaign, and fundraising for congressional campaigns is skyrocketing,
it’s worth paying some attention to the real changes that
are possible when you offer candidates an alternative source
of “clean” public funding for their races.

First, the academic view: Clean Elections has made a difference
in Arizona and Maine, where more candidates are running and
competitiveness has increased, according to a May 2004 paper
entitled “Do
Public Funding Programs Enhance Electoral Competition?” [http://campfin.polisci.wisc.edu/publications.asp]
Professor Kenneth Mayer and his colleagues in the Department
of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison offer
some striking conclusions. Among their findings:

• “There is no question that public funding
  programs have increased the pool of candidates willing and
  able to run for
  state legislative office. This effect is most pronounced
  for challengers, who were far more likely than incumbents to
  accept
  public funding.”

• “Public funding appears to have increased the likelihood
  that an incumbent will have a competitive race.” In
  Arizona, it more than doubled from 22% of all races in 1998
  to 45% in
  2002.

• “Fears that clean money would be tantamount
  to an incumbent protection act are unfounded, as are, as near
  as we can tell,
  objections that money would be used by fringe candidates
  who would do nothing but feed at the public trough.”

• “Arizona experienced a significant jump in
  the number of contested races in 2002, increasing from about
  40% in 2000 to
  over 60% in 2002. Not only was this increase large, it also
  reversed the previous trend of uniformly fewer contested elections
  between
  1994 and 2000. While we cannot attribute this shift entirely
  to public funding (which was also in place for 2000), it
  is likely to have played a key role.”

The early results for the 2004 election cycle are also impressive.
In Maine, which held primaries June 8, 71 percent of the candidates
were running “Clean”—up from 50 percent in
2002 and 31 percent in 2000. (It’s too soon for numbers
from Arizona, as the primary there takes place on September 5.)
The Portland Press-Herald reports that the bumper crop of candidates
resulted in the most contested party primaries in almost a decade.

And the candidates credit Clean Elections with making the difference: “There’s
a number of people who could not afford to have run had it not
been for the Clean Elections Act,” Republican Robert Haggett
of Biddeford, a House candidates, told the Press-Herald. “I’d
like to go into the Legislature not being beholden to anybody,” said
Timothy Driscoll, another House candidate who ran “clean.” Echoing
other prior participants in Clean Elections, Driscoll said “It’s
all about getting out door to door.” Knowing you don’t
have to raise private money, he added, “gives you more
time to do that.”

In addition to changing how candidates run for office, and
expanding the choices before voters, Clean Elections is also
starting to
make a difference in legislative outcomes. This Thursday, we’ll
have an update for you on changes in both states.

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AAHH! is an occasional e-mail bulletin on how Clean
Money in politics can help average citizens, published by Public
Campaign,
a non-partisan, non-profit organization devoted to comprehensive
campaign finance reform. Every day, we pay more as consumers
and taxpayers for special interest subsidies and boondoggles
because of our system of privately financed elections. It's time
for a change.

Want to take action? Help “Keep Arizona Clean” and
stave off an effort by big money special interests to undo that
state’s Clean Elections system, by going to www.pcactionfund.org/five.
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