Voters take back elections

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Tue Dec 6, 7:42 AM ET

While Congress wallows in the ethical swamp where money and politics meet, one more state just found a way out. Voters there will pay for campaigns, which might be the bargain of the century. They'll save countless dollars doled from public coffers to the favor seekers who fund campaigns now.

Connecticut's Legislature voted last week to create a public financing option for candidates who run for state office. Seven other states and two cities have done the same over the past decade - a movement that hasn't been spotted on the national radar but might auger a seismic shift in attitudes.

In Connecticut, an embarrassing run of state and local scandals, including the jailing of a corrupt governor and several others, finally forced action. But the experience of states like Maine and Arizona that pioneered the "clean money" alternative should encourage others to do the same.

The idea is simple: Candidates for the Connecticut Legislature or a statewide office who raise a modest amount of seed money from small donors to prove their legitimacy can qualify for public funds, which range from $25,000 for a state House race to $3 million for a gubernatorial campaign. In return, they must pledge to spurn private donations:

• In Maine, where the movement started, more than 80% of last year's legislative candidates rejected private money, freeing them to spend more time talking to voters about the issues instead of having to hustle the state's political big spenders.

• In Arizona, 56% of all candidates last year ran with "clean money."

• In North Carolina, a dozen judicial candidates accepted public money, avoiding the ethical quagmire of taking donations from those likely to have issues before the courts.

Experience suggests that public financing is creating more competition and encouraging more women and other first-time candidates to get involved. No wonder, then, that many incumbents and the special interests behind them don't like the idea, since it could threaten their hold on power. (In Massachusetts, the Legislature sabotaged a public financing plan that voters adopted overwhelmingly in a referendum.)

Connecticut's lawmakers had been avoiding reform for years, many of them comfortable with the too-cozy system of hitting up lobbyists and state contractors for campaign cash. But enough finally got weary of being ridiculed as "Corrupticut" to pass the reforms by comfortable margins.

Vermont, New Jersey and New Mexico have also adopted public financing on a limited basis, as have Albuquerque and Portland, Ore. - where it's called "voter-owned elections."

Defenders of the status quo ridicule public financing as welfare for politicians and warn of potential abuses. But while hundreds of candidates have used the option, the few cases of misuse or disputes about overspending are a small price for taking ownership of elections away from interests that want to manipulate them for their own benefit.

Whether it's the statehouse or Congress, if the public doesn't claim ownership of elections by paying for them, plenty of others are willing to do so - at the public's expense.