Democratic Diva

14 Dec 2009 07:00 pm
Posted by: Donna

They’re at it again. The political in-crowd of Arizona is pushing the “Clean Elections did it” meme. Today’s iteration is in the Tucson Star. What’s really disappointing is that normally good Dems have been coopted into the groupthink clique.

Et tu, Jim?

But even the guy who helped bankroll the campaign to get it approved, former Democratic Party Chairman Jim Pederson, now says it it was a mistake — not only failing to achieve those goals, but actually contributing to more partisanship and the exclusion of political minority perspectives…

…”I really thought it would open up the process,” he said. “It sounds good and everyone has been trying to sanitize the political process, but the law of unintended consequences comes in, and you end up producing a product you hadn’t contemplated.

“If you do this at the national level, I think it would lead to the same experience we’ve had in Arizona.”

Recall from my last post on the topic that the narrative we’re supposed to believe is that 1700 W. Washington St. used to be a bastion of collegiality and cooperation (to the article’s credit, it does call this into question) until they passed that dastardly Clean Elections, which is totally responsible for the fact that we have the recalcitrant likes of Ron Gould, Sylvia Allen, and Pamela Gorman in the current legislature.

Except that none of three ran Clean in 2008. Never mind that! Clean Elections is to blame for our polarized Lege!

Next up is Sen. Ken Chevrount, a beneficiary of Clean Elections himself in 2004 and 2006:

State Sen. Ken Cheuvront, a Phoenix Democrat, said it won’t be a loss if voters agree there are more pressing needs for the funds generated by court fines and surcharges.

Ever since moderate Republicans sided with former Demo-cratic Gov. Janet Napolitano to build a budget, he said, Clean Elections has been part of a strategy to purge centrists. “Some of these people who are ideologically oriented would never have gotten the resources to run if it weren’t for Clean Elections,” he said.

Remember in my previous post that I pointed out that Cheuvront, a moderate, gets elected in the same district that uber-progressive Kyrsten Sinema does. Nothing was stopping a fire-breathing lefty from knocking him out with Clean Elections if the program had the force to do such a thing. Furthermore, the majority of the Republicans in the legislature are not freshmen. That is, they were not specifically recruited to purge centrists who voted with Napolitano. They are consistent with a nationwide reactionary trend with the Republican party in general. And voters approve protected funds for a reason – so that legislators can’t get their grubby mitts on them. Clean Elections has its own funding source. That money would not be there were it not for the initiative that created it.

ON EDIT: Clean Elections is not funded purely by court fines and surcharges. $5 contributions and voluntary tax credits and contributions also fund the program. When money taken into the program exceeds projections, the excess is put into the general fund, to the tune of about $15 million a year. IOW, Clean Elections is a net plus for the state.

Then we have Sen. Linda “I Ran Unopposed In 2008″ Lopez, who had this to say:

But state Sen. Linda Lopez, a Tucson Democrat, said there’s something to be said about approaching people and asking them for money. Five-dollar donors aren’t as likely to grill candidates about their positions as someone who’s writing more substantial checks, she said.

“You’ve got to be able to convince people that you’re willing to work on your priorities and that you can be successful and that you’ll respect the process.”

Must have been so hard for her to raise money from PACs and business people for her one-woman Senate race. Note that Cheuvront was unopposed in 2008 too.

An uninitiated person reading that article would think that no one who runs Clean has to talk to anyone and that qualifying is simply a matter of collecting a few easy $5 contributions and getting a fat check. Not quite. You still have to get signatures to get on the ballot. Which, if you’re not an incumbent or well-funded establishment candidate, requires you and maybe a small group of volunteers if you’re lucky, to knock on doors or stand outside of libraries. When I ran I had a 285 signature minimum but I made sure to turn in several hundred more, just to make sure I had enough valid ones. Same with Clean Elections contributions. I had to get at least 215 and I got several more to make sure I would have enough to qualify. That meant I or my volunteers personally contacted a good number of voters in my district. Traditionally funded candidates have been known to hire professional canvassers to do this task.

Because it takes a while to get your Clean Elections funding, the program permits you to self-fund or raise a certain amount of seed money to get your campaign off the ground. In 2006, the individual limit was $120 and the maximum amount was $2800 or so. I put $600 of my own money in and got several people to contribute small sums of money for the rest. It’s not a lot of money, admittedly, but I still had to “smile and dial” for it or ask in person.

Running Clean doesn’t mean you don’t get vetted by the local media and innumerable interest groups either. I lost count of the number of questionnaires I filled out. I got endorsed by some and not by others, but they all got their chance to see where I stood on things and several of them wanted essay-length answers. I was interviewed by everyone from the AFL-CIO to Chambers of Commerce. I did an editorial board with the Republic and a televised forum for the East Valley Tribune. Speaking of forums, one of the requirements of receiving Clean Elections funding is participation in their candidate forum, which is streamed online. Every participating and non-participating candidate is given the opportunity to submit a statement to the Clean Elections Candidate Pamphlet, sent to every voter in the state.

The Citizens Clean Elections Commission makes a substantial effort to inform the voting public of candidates’ positions, and with the exception of the occasional Libertarian crank or Green Party spoiler, the candidates themselves are legitimate and earnest, whether or not you agree with their views.

Don’t assume that getting rid of Clean Elections will usher in a new era of kumbaya centrism in the AZ Legislature. Look at the rest of the country. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann got her crazy self elected to the state legislature in blue Minnesota with no Clean Elections. A quick glance at the GOP in Congress is proof enough that limiting candidates to traditional funding is no impediment to extremists winning offices. Let’s be honest, the Republican capitalist elite had no problem with candidates who appealed to the lowest denominator of racism and intolerance until very recently. Now they’ve become a problem for them. Too bad.

Are there problems with Clean Elections in Arizona? Absolutely. I’m with Rep. Steve Farley when he says:

“The concept and the theory is good,” he said. “We should be working on campaign financing at every level. We just need to figure out how to make it work better.”

My main criticism with Clean Elections going back to my own race is that the funding is ridiculously inadequate, especially if you don’t get matching funds. $35K is not nearly enough for a lege candidate to get her message out to tens of thousands of voters. Then you have the fact that legislative districts vary greatly in number of voters. A candidate in a district with 120,000 voters gets the exact same funding as one in a district with 45,000 voters. It should be proportionate. State Treasurer, Superintendent of Public Ed, and Corporation Commission candidates should get at least as much as Secretary of State and AG candidates, since their offices are also statewide, and every bit as important and as hard to win. It might be a good idea to raise both the signature and $5 contribution levels for candidates, to weed out the non-serious ones.

I am disheartened to see Democrats jumping on the destroy Clean Elections bandwagon. The first commenter to the Star article blames Fox News for the extremism at the State Capitol. I’m inclined to agree.

4 Comments

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI

Leave a comment

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website