A few members of California’s congressional delegation played leading roles today in passing the most sweeping reforms in our campaign finance system since the post-Watergate era through the House Administration committee. The bill could head for a full vote in the House as soon as next week, which would give the rest of our delegation a similar chance to show they are hearing voters’ call for change and are getting serious about reform.
Lofgren joined Rep. Susan Davis in passing the Fair Elections Now Act. Fair Elections would let members of Congress focus on their constituents instead of raising money from lobbyists or other special interests. Candidates would raise donations of $100 or less from their home state, which would be matched on a four-to-one basis from a fair elections fund. The system is funded by the sale of broadcast spectrum and would not cost taxpayers a dime.
This fairly bold act comes in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling earlier this year which is unleashing a torrent of campaign cash from corporations who can now spend unlimited amounts of money to support or attack candidates for Congress. A Fair Elections system would allow candidates to fight back without themselves becoming beholden to special interests.
Bashing politicians has become an easy sport these days, with approval ratings for both congress and our state legislature in the tank. Voters at both the recent Glenn Beck rally in DC and at MoveOn events around the country are saying strikingly similar things about the crisis of big money in politics and support for Fair Elections. Yet conventional wisdom is that incumbents will never change a system that got them elected, and certainly wouldn't take up any bold reforms in the heat of an elections.Given that, its truly refreshing to see that at least some elected officials seem to be listening, and seem to be ready to make major changes.
Unfortunately, California's Rep. Dan Lungren seems to be happy with things the way they are. Lungren offered an amendment in the committee aimed at ensuring that Fair Elections would not go into effect in any year there's a federal deficit.This ploy ignores the fact that the bill pays for itself, neither adding to the deficit nor adding to taxes, and would have created a perverse future incentive for incumbents to run up a deficit anytime they wanted to gut campaign finance laws. Fortunately, Lofgren, Davis, and four other committee members shot the amendment down.