Former senators Warren Rudman and Bob Kerrey make a case for a “system of voluntary public funding for qualified candidates, combining small donations with matching public funds” like the successful Clean Elections options in Arizona and Maine in an op-ed published in today’s Globe.
Ouch! They don’t mention that Massachusetts voters – twice – voted for exactly the same kind of public financing option to open up the process and lift Massachusetts from our position at the bottom of the barrel in terms of percentage of uncontested legislative elections. Yes, folks, we have been the worst, or next to worst among all 50 states for many years.
Former House Speaker and now, also, former felon, Tom Finneran successfully flouted the will of the voters, then thumbed his nose at the Supreme Judicial Court and strangled the Clean Elections Law. I never quite understood how he got away with it. But this is Massachusetts.
They’ve changed the moniker and now it is called Fair Elections, rather than Clean Elections, which is a smart idea since the old moniker implied that anything but publicly financed campaigns were dirty politics.
peter-porcupine says
The law is still on the books.
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p>You just have to convince the Democrats who conrol the House, Senate and Corner Office in Mass. to fund it.
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p>(…tick,tock..tick,tock…)
justice4all says
who has engaged in his own “end-run” around campaign finance laws.
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david says
That’s just silly. Saying that a legal practice “violates the spirit” of an existing law is basically saying that the practice is legal but the person doing the talking thinks it shouldn’t be.
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p>Furthermore, you’ll note that the editorial you quote is over a year old. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m fairly certain that the ethics bill passed by the legislature and signed by the Governor eliminated the mechanism that allowed the “71st Fund” — with the Governor’s full support.
peter-porcupine says
justice4all says
And if the 71st fund was such a dandy idea, and everything passed the smell test, why did the new ethics law eliminate it?
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p>I just found this:
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p>http://www.patriotledger.com/h…
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p>I would suggest that it was precisely because it didn’t pass the smell test, that it was eliminated.
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p>The thing that I object to is the near mythic qualities being ascribed to the governor in terms of “changing” the culture on Beacon Hill. After the crummy appointments and his own campaign financing scheme…I’m not seeing it. Really – big deal – he signed a bill. It’s a pity that he didn’t have the foresight and the integrity to pull the plug of the 71st Fund before it even started.
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david says
That’s easy — because the Senate took the opportunity to try to embarrass the Gov, and the Gov called their bluff, embracing instead of opposing the reform. Good politics by the Gov; a modest but relatively unimportant change in campaign finance law.
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p>Money in politics is like water. It will always find the cracks. That was true before; it is true now; and it will continue to be true the next time some big campaign finance “reform” is ushered in.
justice4all says
Governor Patrick rode into town, preaching a new kind of politics. He said it wasn’t going to be “business as usual.” Yet – he’s engaged in the same old, same old – just different faces and a few new schemes. I expected a whole lot more from this guy and I know a lot of other people who did, too.
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p>And to be honest, David – closing the 71st Fund wasn’t just about the legislature “embarrassing” Patrick. A lot of activists were screaming about the fund. It was backdoor fundraising that didn’t sit well with a lot of people.
christopher says
With a limit of $500 per person I’ve never seen how money is that big a deal in MA.