This story in today’s Globe reminded me of how disappointed I am that ALL the statewide Democratic candidates are ignoring the corrupting influence of money in politics today. I’ve gone to a few Democratic events and have heard the stump speech of all the Gov; Lt Gov, Sec of State candidates. NOT ONE OF THEM brought up the subject of trying to get money out of politics in their stump speech, never mind offer solutions. Sure, if someone asked a question about it, the issue gets the prerequisite lip service that the level of money in politics is “bad” but that’s about it.
Yes, given the middle finger the Legislature gave the people of Massachusetts twenty years ago by effectively overriding public financing of campaigns (yes, we do have a microscopic level of public financing available for statewide candidates, it is more symbolic than anything) perhaps we can’t blame them. Or perhaps it is a reflection of the weakness among this crop of candidates…because the problem of money in politics has exponentially grown in the last twenty years and the need for real reforms have never been more evident.
And we need to only look at our neighboring state of Connecticut or nearby Maine as examples of modern day public financing that works. Each state requires candidates to raise a nominal amount of money–to show they have genuine support and are “real” candidates. In Maine candidates for Gov. have to recruit 3,200 donors to give $5 or more and they qualify for $1 million in campaign funding. But that’s all they can spend and that is all they can raise. In Connecticut, candidates for State Rep must raise $5,000 from at least 300 residents from their district and they are eligible for $11,000 in the primary and nearly $29,000 in the general.
But as a long-time Democrat, I’ve heard nothing pro-active from the candidates running for my party’s nomination about this issue and I’m disappointed. But in many ways, I have to give these candidates a pass. Because I haven’t heard a lot about this issue from the activists either. While I’m not a 3 times a day BlueMassGroup reader like I used to be, I still frequently visit and I’ve seen nothing here from the commenters/posters. It is seldom brought up as a question in the candidate forums / Democratic breakfasts that I’ve gone to. I’ve also gone to a number of Indivisible meetings and I’ve heard lots of complaints about the Koch Brothers buying election or how Trump is for sale…but nothing about doing something locally to address the issue. And while I’m not privy to the questions sent out by various progressive groups, the silence I hear on this issue leads me to believe it is not a high priority with them either.
I’m sure I’ll get comments about this group having the question on their candidate questionnaire; or that candidate advocating for a CT or ME like plan. I have no doubt that this issue has been part of the mix. But for us to solve the problems Massachusetts faces, reforming money in politics has to be front and center. It has to be a key cornerstone of a candidates platform. We need urgency with this issue. But sadly there is no urgency.
Frankly, we won’t be able to address the many problems we face, because money alters the equation every single time. The Probation scandal is but one example. How do we help those being supervised for criminal behavior, with the goal of getting them back on the “right track”, when hiring was determined by campaign donations? How can we address critical public policy issues when big campaign donors and fundraisers “coincidentally” are awarded contracts or have sway over key pubic policy issues?
Never mind the fact that, in a time of overall cynicism about politics, this is a great campaign issue to run on! (So I’ll throw the “political consultant” class under the bus also for professional malpractice for ignoring an obvious issue to run on.)
So, count me as a Massachusetts Democrat that is greatly disappointed with both the candidates AND progressive activists who at best pay lip service to this issue and at worst think the status quo is just fine. We have meet the enemy…
I actually hear about it quite a bit, but MA laws are already pretty stringent in this regard.
By stringent, do you mean MA has strong public financing laws? If so, Charlie Baker has a loophole big enough to drive a $7 million truck through. Never mind the dark money that has flowed into state campaigns like the charter school question or Baker’s influence in the GOP State committee races. There is nothing stringent about that.
Or do you mean our hands are tied because of present MA law are stringently prohibitive to implement public financing? If the latter, that’s why we need Dem leaders who will make it a priority to change the laws.
BTW, I don’t doubt you go to more Dem events than I. Can you tell me which candidates advocate for public financing of campaigns as part of their regular stump speech or have it among their top three issues they want to tackle?
I meant that we have very low contribution limits, though they were raised in the last couple of years. Public employees are completely prohibited from so much as nodding in the direction of a fundraising request. From what I understand the smallest gifts and contributions have to be recorded.
Both of our gubernatorial candidates have lengthy statements regarding campaign finance on their websites, but apparently we cannot link anymore.
Did you read what I wrote? Limiting campaign contributions to $2,000 per couple, not allowing public employees to raise money (for their bosses…very unethical) and requiring disclosures are hardly stringent and certainly has nothing to do with a public financing system. If anything, a CT or Maine model will eliminate the need to ask people for $2,000 contribution or to bundle $10.000.
I visited Bob Massie’s website. Listed are 17 issues, one is called “Democracy” and there he calls for federal change and repealing Citizen united. Fine. But NOTHING about a state system, which as Governor he has the power to make happen. I went to Jay Gonzalez’s site and he has 13 issue areas and looking under “Government Transparency” I found nothing. So that just supports my argument that it is not a big campaign issue.
I just don’t get how we can achieve the public policy goals progressive advocate for under a system where money pretty much decides everything. Without a real commitment of putting this issue front and center, we are fooling ourselves that change will happen. And frankly without candidates that are not strongly advocating public financing as a cornerstone of their campaign, why should progressives have any faith that things will change?
pogo, maybe these were expanded recently, but I go to Bob Massie’s website and see this under “Democracy“:
And on Jay’s site a whole page on campaign finance reform, though the public financing bit sounds a bit weak:
I agree though these need to be front and center.