Group Presentation w/ NY Citizen Action - SUNY Binghamton, NY

I first began planning an event for the National Week of Action about a month in advance. I set my sights high, planning for two events—one on the main campus and one at the Downtown Campus of Binghamton University. I wanted each to be about an hour or two long with various activities and raffles. I also wanted to involve the community in some way. I didn’t realize at the time, but I set a very unrealistic goal for myself.

As the National Week of Action drew closer, I met with Citizen Action to organize these events. I figured with their help I could easily pull off two events. Upon meeting with them, we talked it over and decided on pooling all our resources for one event at the Downtown Center. The Downtown Center has been built very recently and generated substantial community interest. It would be the perfect place to gather both students and community members for a Clean Money event. I made the decision that night to have a smaller event on campus for the main purpose of spreading the word about the event at the Downtown Campus. This would be more reasonable a goal considering I really had no idea how to plan even one event.

So, with the help of Citizen Action and my group members, we designed an event that would be a sort of information session/press conference regarding Clean Money. I went to the Downtown Center shortly after this meeting (about two weeks before the Week of Action), and reserved the room for the event. After that, I had people from Citizen Action and my group meet at the room to go over some plans for organizing this event. We decided to set up booths representing stations with different materials that would serve to educate both students and community members.

After this initial step, I moved on to organizing the food, fliers, and materials for the tables. I coordinated with Citizen Action to split up some of the planning tasks. I would be in charge of spreading the word to students and getting them to attend and Citizen Action would work on creating interest within the community, the media and with local politicians.

To publicize the event on campus, I felt it important to pass out fliers and put an ad in the school newspaper. The ad ran on the Tuesday two days before the event, and the day before the event my group and I passed out over 250 fliers around campus. It was hard not to get discouraged by the mass apathy of the student body. However, it was encouraging to think that if even five out of the hundreds of people we talked to came to this event it was a success. I set my goal low. I decided I would be happy with 20 people total at my event. The room was sort of small and could look decently filled up with 20 people. I also envisioned people continuously coming and going.

On Wednesday, the day before the event, I went to take care of the food preparations. Food would be my biggest draw with the students, and I knew it had to be done right. With funding from Democracy Matters and Citizen Action, I was able to get subs and pizza. Citizen Action enlisted the help of a local politician, Barbara Abbott King, and had local news channels agree to cover the event.

On the day of the event, I arrived at the Downtown Campus two hours early to make sure everything went smoothly. I was concerned that students would not come from the main campus, which is kind of far from the Downtown Campus. It was also raining, and I thought that might keep some people away. My fears were never realized. The event went great. I’m not too sure how many students actually came from the main campus all the way to the Downtown Campus, but I did see a few students come in holding the fliers I passed out the day before. It also worked out perfectly because we planned on starting the event just as classes let out at the Downtown Campus and many people got out of class hungry and eager to have some free food.

The media covered the event, interviewed me and covered our press release.

http://www.wicz.com/fox40/video.asp?video=11%2D15%2D07+clean%2Ewmv

Barbara Abbott King really helped out with speaking on the issue of Clean Money and how it shaped her experiences running for office. Most of the food was eaten and everyone seemed to have a great time talking about Clean Money. I spoke to a few students about Clean Money as well and saw tons of people taking handouts, signing petitions, signing letters to politicians, and supporting our cause.

Dave Ugelow

Campus Coordinator

SUNY Binghamton

Political Science Debate - Western Carolina Univserity, NC

1. Why did I want to organize this event?

I feel like it is important for students to hear about the issues from other students. The event was also a great follow up after the DM Faculty Panel Discussion last week. The debate also allowed students to address questions to the panel which generated good discussion of the issues.

2. What steps did I take to organizing it?

First I created a list of questions, approximately 25 questions total, to address campaign finance reform, the presidential election in 2008, and water conservation issues affecting North Carolina. Then I contacted the three parties on campus, the College Democrats, College Greens, and College Republicans to set a date and distribute the questions. The third item on my to-do-list was to send out promotions for the event through campus email, Facebook, university radio station, university TV station, and political science Listserve for majors. Before the event, I had to create an agenda for the welcome, announcements, and format of debate to keep the event structured. On the night of the event, I found two DM volunteers to keep track of time and hold the microphone to receive questions from the students.

3. What were some of the challenges I faced?

For me, I gave each group the opportunity to choose 5 of the questions from the list I had created and email me the questions they would like to start open with a 2 minute statement and the other groups would be given a 30 second rebuttal. The College Greens did not have 5 questions to give to me at the debate.

4. What accounted for the success of the campaign?

Of course with any campaign prior proper planning prevents poor performance but I must say the political science professors are very supportive of Democracy Matters activities on campus and they encourage their students to attend.

5. What lessons did I learn in organizing this campaign?

For student coordinators it is important that they are listed as the primary contact, because faculty and students sometimes have questions that they would like addressed before the event and people from the community may want to attend your event. It is very important to centralize the information from one source.

Coley Phillips
Campus Coordinator
Western Carolina University

Guest Speakers - Southern Methodist University, TX

Rebuilding Democracy in America: Bipartisan Support for Campaign Finance Reform

Democracy Matters SMU

The event “Rebuilding Democracy in America: Bipartisan Support for Campaign Finance Reform” took place on Wednesday, November 7, 2007 at Southern Methodist University in the Hughes-Trigg Student Center. Arizona State Representative Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat, and North Carolina Court of Appeals Judge Donna Stroud, a Republican, both spoke about the Clean Elections systems in their states and entertained questions after their presentation.

In total, we had 75 attendees. The audience was very diverse – we had a lot of SMU students, a few non-SMU students, and quite a few non-students. There were three classes that offered extra credit for attendance (a politics class, a sociology class, and an English class), and we also worked very hard to promote the event via class announcements, announcements at other club meetings, flyers, stake signs, and basically a lot of constant networking. SMU cosponsors included the Political Science Symposium, Students for a Better Society, Association of Black Students, the Women’s Center, the University Honors Program, and the Department for Leadership and Community Involvement.

Most of the non-SMU attendees came as a result of the participation of our local Dallas Clean Elections Texas coordinator, Liz Wally. Furthermore, the League of Women Voters Dallas cosponsored the event and I believe a few attendees learned about the event from the League’s email promotion. Despite not being to raise the funds last minute, LWV Dallas brought six small cameras and filmed the event. This is awesome as it is, but it also looked great – very professional. DVDs should be available soon to distribute and share.

As for the presentation content, Representative Kyrsten Sinema began and simply told her story and described the system in Arizona, as an introduction to the concept of Clean Elections. Then, Judge Donna Stroud spoke about the system in North Carolina and even presented some comparisons of Texas and North Carolina’s judicial systems. This was especially pertinent to those of us in the audience who are involved with Clean Elections Texas, which is seriously considering pushing Clean Elections at the state judicial level. While New Mexico has passed Clean Elections at the judicial level, only North Carolina has had time to use the system. Therefore, North Carolina is an important role model for any state looking to take action at the judicial level. The two presentations complemented each other nicely, and we had some great questions at the end.

Ultimately, I wished I could have allowed each speaker about twenty more minutes to really expand on their material, share some anecdotes, make it more relevant and real to some of the students, but that simply would have made the event too long. Despite this, I felt that the speakers were received well. Having a speaker from each party was vital to the success of the event, due to the political atmosphere at SMU. Politics can become very polarized here, and I was pleased that Representative Sinema and Judge Stroud displayed such an excellent example of cooperation and respect across party.

Cody Meador
Campus Coordinator
Southern Methodist University

Op-Ed at Rutgers University, NJ

In continuing with the spirit of journalism activism, Simon Burger, Campus Coordinator at Rutgers University in New Jersey, wrote an excellent op-ed about the Hsu/Clinton fundraising scandal. He lays out the issue very clearly and leads the reader right into the solution. Good job!

“You get invited to dinner somewhere and someone gives you some money. And then you get a call a month later and he wants to see you. Are you going to say no?”—Former Congressman Peter Kostmayer, Pennsylvania.

Whether Norman Hsu is guilty or not, and whether or not Senator Hillary Clinton’s political campaign or any other knew about his troubles with the law, the funding scandal involving campaign funds from this business executive are just another symptom of the broken system of campaign finance we have here in America.

The sheer amount of time that both the media and various campaigns have spent on this case is argument enough for a change. But let’s look at the other factors, and see exactly why publicly funded elections are not just a good idea, they are necessary if we want to return any semblance of trust to our political campaigns, and to our politicians, here in the United States.

The current limit on contributions from one person to a candidate is $2,000 per election cycle. This may not seem like a lot, but let’s keep in mind that very few people can actually afford to go around dropping $2k on their favorite candidate, let alone sprinkling the legally allowed $95,000 between the candidate, his or her party, and the Political Action Committees that support them. This is just for one candidate; it’s standard practice to donate to both sides, so just in case your favorite doesn’t win, you’ve still got an inside man.

All this means that giving money to your candidate becomes restricted to the super-wealthy. According to data provided by the Senate Office of Public Records and publicly available at opensecrets.org, roughly .01% of Americans contribute over 40% of total political contributions.

There is also no restriction on bundling, where one fundraiser can hold an event to raise money, collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars (Hsu raised $850,000 for Clinton) and then tying it all together in a neat package for delivery to their candidate of choice. Of course, the checks still have the original contributors’ names on them, but who has time to pay attention to that? The real credit goes to the bundler, who garners special titles like Clinton’s “HillRaisers,” Rudy Guiliani’s “Team Captains,” and Mitt Romney’s “Founders.”

One can certainly argue that raising this much money for a candidate has no influence on them, but this is simply a distortion of reality. The pharmaceutical industry spent nearly $30 million during the 2002 Congressional election. In 2003, the new Medicare bill contained little to no stipulations for price negotiations with pharmaceutical companies, leaving our seniors with huge prescription costs. Surprised?

Contending that this would be the bill that many Congressmen would vote for anyway is certainly plausible, but it is ridiculous to say that nobody was influenced by campaign contributions. Bush spent $300 million and Kerry $240 million in the 2004 election, and the cost of the average Senate campaign is almost $8 million. A viable campaign simply can’t be run without huge campaign fundraising. This leaves us with politicians who must consider their campaign finances when deciding how to make laws. They might not want to—they have to. In fact, Democratic presidential candidates Barack Obama and John Edwards and Republican Mike Huckabee have all spoken in favor of campaign finance, all the while accepting these contributions. Are they talking out of both sides of their mouth? No, they simply have no choice.

Does this mean to get any reform we all have to vote for Obama, Edwards, or Huckabee? No, fortunately not. We can achieve change without supporting any specific candidates by urging our Congressmen to vote for the Fair Elections Now Act (FENA). This act would provide FULL public financing for elections. This would mean that once a candidate acquired substantial public support, they would receive full funding for their campaign, according to a formula that would actually allow these politicians to stay entirely competitive. FENA doesn’t raise free speech issues, like mandatory funding systems, because it is entirely voluntary, and the cost to each taxpayer ends up being less than $20. Cheap! And in return? We get a more diverse group of candidates. We get politicians who concentrate on the issues, instead of the money they need to raise. And, we get the trust that our legislators our working for us, not for the wealthy special interests that get them elected.

Op-Ed at Nassau Community College, NY

Writing op-eds and submitting them to school and local papers is a great way to generate attention to a variety of issues and their connections with money in politics. Above is an op-ed written by Andrew Calderaro at Nassau Community College.

Democracy MATTERS: Remembering 9/11 with Reform

By Andrew Calderaro

In a poll conducted last year by Lake Research and Bellwether Research, 82% of likely voters believed that overwhelming change would result from publicly funded elections (as opposed to the current system of private financing). Although lower, 52% viewed Congress as unethical and 66% asserted lobbyists were unethical. While many incidents could be used to dignify proposed campaign finance reform, the anniversary of September 11, 2001 is one event above all others that should compel us to rethink our electoral process.

In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned the American populace of the growing military-industrial complex. What he meant to say, though advised not to, was the military-industrial-congressional complex. The roughly 3,000 who perished in the Twin Towers, the nearly 3,800 soldiers who have died and close to 30,000 who have been injured in Iraq are numbers that pale in comparison to the profits made by military contractors for contracts awarded by Congress for services in Afghanistan and Iraq -- i.e. Kellogg, Brown and Root alone (a former subsidiary of infamous Halliburton) received over $11,000,000,000 in contracts by 2004 -- a result of the very phenomenon Eisenhower foreshadowed nearly a half-century ago. This anniversary, we must consider not only the military-industrial-congressional complex, but the entire system of privately financed campaigns and resort to a different sort of reflection with hard-line questioning: If getting elected to office requires millions of dollars and much of this money is paid by the corporations benefiting from laws and government contracts, who do laws and decisions like whether or not go to war in the first place favor? How does this affect our democratic ideals? Most important, how is this epidemic to be solved?

Elected office has historically been for the wealthy and those with access to the requisite financing. According to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), during the 2004 election cycle the average cost to win a seat in the House of Representatives exceeded $1 million; to win a seat in the more exclusive senate typically ran a candidate over $7 million. Of course, some candidates were fortunate enough to spend a little less, though others doled out a bit more than the average. For example, Representative Roy Blunt (R-MO) spent well over $3 million in 2006; in 2004 Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) raised nearly $14 million; in 2006 Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) spent close to $41 million, and the list goes on.

Despite the alienation of the poor and those of moderate means from elected office, self-financing of campaigns is seldom relied upon. Candidates turn to private contributions from individuals and political action committees (PACs - private organizations formed to elect a candidate, usually on behalf of a corporation or special interest). The Center for Responsive Politics reported that in 2004, PACs from the top ten contributing military contractors spent $8.17 million. In 2000, these same groups spent nearly $60 million to lobby the federal government.

Campaign contributions are funneled to all the right recipients. For example, the defense sector naturally targets members of the Armed Services Committee both of the House and the Senate. During the 2006 election cycle Committee Chairman Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) added nearly $250,000 to his war chest; Senator Bill Nelson's (D-FL) campaign efforts were aided by a $178,000 boost; not to be outdone, Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT) received $275,000, and so on. In turn, they're expected to support and even draft legislation that aides their contributors. Given this, it is no surprise that the top ten donating military contractors -- Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon Co., United Technologies, Honeywell International, SAIC Inc., and DRS Technologies -- received over $82 billion in federal
contracts in 2003 alone.

When there is this much money and power involved in military contracts and running for office, there is an incentive not to merely go to war, but to stay at war. The U.S. citizen must ask himself: Why wouldn't the U.S. go to war? Further, what other aspects of our lives can the powerful benefit from exploiting?

The defense sector is just one of many engaged in this political symbiosis. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that on a list of top campaign contributors from all sectors dating back to 1990, the highest ranking military contractor is Lockheed Martin -- at 36th. Thought that FedEx was content with simply delivering that birthday present from your aunt halfway across the country? It ranks 21st on the list. Next time you dig into a bowl of Kraft's creamy mac & cheese, don't forget that Kraft's parent company, the Altria Group, ranks 16th. At the top is the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, which has donated nearly $40 million in the past 15 years, including substantial support for John Kerry's 2004 presidential bid.

With substantial sums of money exchanging the hands involved in our electoral process, it is only natural that some measures of regulation have been put in place. President Theodore Roosevelt was the first mainstream champion of reform, though his turn-of-the-century efforts were far from comprehensive. It wouldn't be until the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 and the creation of the Federal Election Commission in 1975 that oversight of campaign contributions would gain greater notoriety. More recently, presidential candidate Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) sponsored the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act in 2002, and the currently Democraticly lead 110th Congress passed certain regulations shortly after taking office. All of these efforts however, have proven porous and ineffectual in averting corruption and shadow relationships like the military-industrial-congressional complex. What is necessary is full public financing of campaigns, an immerging solution in the form of Clean Elections.

Clean Elections is a compelling alternative to the current campaign finance system. It is a voluntary system of full public financing that offers all citizens the opportunity to run a viable campaign, while freeing the electoral process from dependency on private funding. While this may seem too good to be true, Clean Elections should not be chalked up as some grandiose utopian ideal. Many localities have already implemented the Clean Elections system, and it is thriving in statewide elections in Maine and Arizona, and in some form in New Mexico, Vermont, North Carolina, the cities of Albuquerque and Portland, OR. Connecticut will offer Clean Elections starting in 2008. Remarkably, according to Fair Elections: A Practical Guide to Full Public Funding of Congressional Elections, in 2006 78 percent of Maine's candidates used the Clean Elections system; in Arizona, 58 percent of general election candidates participated, including Gov. Janet Napolitano (D).

To participate, all one must do is prove he or she is a viable candidate by collecting a small number of Qualifying Contributions, usually $5 per donor. After the satisfactory amount (as deemed by the state or locality) has been collected, private donations end. The candidate then begins to receive public financing from a Clean Elections commission for the primary election and, if he or she wins, for the general election as well. For example, Maine Clean Elections candidates in a gubernational contest receive primary election funding equal to 50% of the general election allocation. State representative and state senate candidates receive primary funding equal to 30% - 40% of the general election allocation. If a participating candidate is facing a privately or self-funded opponent with an exorbitant war chest, the commission will dole out "fair fight" funds to strengthen the Clean Elections effort.

Many non-profit, non-partisan lobbies and think tanks were created to see Clean Elections established in more cities and states. Democracy Matters was founded for just this purpose and has been thriving since its inception. Started in 2001 at Colgate University in upstate New York by alum and NBA player Adonal Foyle, Democracy Matters has taken the college community by storm. To date there are nearly 100 college chapters from New York to Hawaii. Luckily for Nassau Community College, Long Island's first Democracy Matters chapter was established on campus this semester. With an exciting hands-on agenda planned, Democracy Matters at NCC will further educate the college community about the current state of America's electoral process and how Clean Elections can effect change. In time, this chapter will have proven to be one of the instruments of change in the Clean Elections effort. Any student can become involved; indeed, there is no better time to consider participating.

Campus Call-In, Minnesota

Call-In day was what i would call a success here at Gustavus. We tabled from 9:00am until 3:00pm (i told everyone to essentially think of it as if we were tabling to advertise some event, except this time the event would be going on while tabling, so we needed to be more vocal and attention-grabbing). Kira had the brilliant idea of making cookies to give to each person who made a call, thus we called it "Cookie for a Call" (it's really hard to reject a warm, gooey chocolate chip cookie). I wish we had kept a tally of how many people stopped to call (my fault), but i can say with certainty that a lot of people stopped by since we made about 200 cookies to start with and had about 50 left by the end of the day (that would imply about 6-7.5% of the campus called, but that's not including the people who called and didn't want a cookie). So, despite my poor attempt at some statistical support, i know that we definitely helped to keep thephone lines busy throughout the day (we had people leave plenty of phone messages because the offices were busy with other calls).  Here's the rap I wrote that we had people use for their calls (not exactly, great, but i think it sufficed):

"Hi, my name is _______ and I am a student at Gustavus Adolphus College in Saint Peter, MN. I am calling to encourage Senator/Representative ________ to support the Fair Elections Now Act which would give Congress the option to have publicly-funded elections.  This bill is important because of the way our current democracy is being undermined by special interests and "big money." I believe in having a American democracy in which the voices of the voters truly count and make a difference in the decisions made by our nation's top legislators, and I believe that fair and clean elections are a step in the right direction for a more honest, more people-oriented government."

DM Campus Coordinator

Clean Candidate Speaks with Students, Ironwood High School, AZ

On April 30th, Arizona State Representative Jackie Thrasher, spoke at Ironwood High School in Glendale, AZ. This event was organized and coordinated by a DM high school fellow, Jenn Robinson. Jenn first contacted all her elected officials to learn their opinions on clean elections. She was pleasantly surprised when she found out that Rep. Jackie Thrasher not only supported clean elections but also ran and won as a clean candidate. Jenn then decided to invite Rep. Thrasher, a former high school teacher, to come and speak at Ironwood High School.

Jenn responded to the following questions so that others DM organizers can successfully organize a similar event.

1.  What was the biggest challenge you faced in organizing this event? What lessons did you learn from these challenges?

The biggest challenged I faced in organizing this event was having the courage to contact many state representatives, like Jackie Thrasher, and other officials asking their opinions of Clean Elections and then asking if they would come speak at our school.  This was difficult because I had no idea what kind of responses I was going to receive since I've never made direct contact with elected officials like that.  It was also a bit of a reality check when I got back emails that totally bashed Clean Elections.  I was under the impression that everyone understood that running clean was a good thing even if they still chose to run traditionally, but I was quite wrong...There were some pretty vulgar replies that made me realize how controversial everything ends up being in politics.  I learned that you just have to take the bad with the good and be persistent and not let others' negativity discourage you.

2.  What were some of the questions that students asked and how did Rep. Thrasher repsond?

After Jackie Thrasher explained her motivation for running for office: the lack of funding for education, there were some students that questioned why so little money was being allotted for their education.  Rep. Thrasher responded by saying that she felt the same way-puzzled by the idea that AZ could be next to last in funding for public education, and that is why she had to do something about it.  Another student asked what political party she was from (as she had been very nonpartisain in her entire speech.) She responded honestly, "Democratic," and an uproar arrose in the young crowd...I asked the question, "How would you respond to people who say that Clean Elections is a violation of peoples' first amendment right to freedom of speech since they are being limited on the amount of money, and therefore support, they can give to a candidate running clean?"  Rep. Thrasher responded by saying that since it is an option to run clean, she doesn't see it as impeding of the right to free speech. 

3.  If someone else wanted to bring an elected official into speak, what suggestions would you give them?

I would tell them to make sure they stay in close contact with that official; email at least once a week to keep reconfirming the date and time since elected officials are such busy people.  I would also make sure that you have everything planned out and organized prior to the official's arrival.  (I had all the classes who were attending the event figured out but I forgot that I needed to have the microphone set up so I had to take about 5 quick minutes to set that up and get decent lighting in our theatre.)  I would also say to make sure you send them a thank you card after they have spoken.  That's always nice...

Jenn Robinson
DM High School Fellow
Ironwood High School, AZ