Commentary—

Public Funding Of Election Campaigns Works

By Micah L. Sifry

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 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?”

Professor Kenneth Mayer and his colleagues at 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 such races more than doubled from 22 percent in 1998 to 45 percent 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 percent in 2000 to over 60 percent 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 more contested primaries within parties than 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 candidate, 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.”

(Micah L. Sifry is a senior analyst for Public Campaign, a Washington, D.C.-based nonpartisan, nonprofit organization devoted to comprehensive campaign finance reform.)