The Clean Elections program might not be dead, but it sure looks
like it’s lying in the corner and coughing up blood.
An effort to reform the voter-approved program—which provides
candidates for state office with public funds for their campaigns as
long as they agree to certain spending limits—collapsed in the
final hours of this year’s legislative session, which ended after a
marathon all-nighter last week.
If lawmakers don’t come back into special session in the near future
to revive the reform package, candidates in competitive races will
likely steer clear of the program.
Under the current rules, Clean Elections bankrolls qualifying
candidates with a set amount of money; gubernatorial candidates, for
example, are eligible for $707,447 for the primary and $1,061,171 for
the general election, while legislative candidates get $14,319 for the
primary and $21,479 for the general.
But if a nonparticipating candidate—raising money in the
traditional way—spends more than the limit, the program seeks to
level the playing field by providing matching funds, up to the three
times the original provided amount.
The trouble for Clean Elections began last year, when U.S. District
Judge Roslyn Silver issued a preliminary ruling that the program’s
matching-funds provision was unconstitutional. The case is still making
its way through Silver’s courtroom and is likely to be tied up in the
courts for years to come, but unless she reverses her initial ruling,
Silver is likely to eventually order that matching funds no longer be
issued.
Given the uncertainty, candidates in competitive
races—particularly in expensive statewide contests—will
likely decide to raise private funds rather than limit their spending
at the lower threshold and possibly see themselves outspent by
privately funded opponents.
In an attempt to fix the problem, Clean Elections supporters
proposed House Bill 2603, which would have eliminated matching funds
altogether while doubling the amount of money available for statewide
candidates and increasing the amount of money that legislative
candidates received at the start of their campaigns by 50 percent.
Gubernatorial candidates would have received $1,414,894 for their
primaries, while legislative candidates would have been eligible for
$21,478.
Sen. Jonathan Paton, a Tucson Republican who has been critical of
Clean Elections, nonetheless tried to get the reform package through
the Senate.
“I want to make it clear that I oppose Clean Elections, but whether
you like Clean Elections or not, it does everyone a disservice as long
we don’t know how it’s going to work,” Paton says. “With several
high-profile races, including a governor’s race, coming up, it seemed
like a smart idea to have some kind of certainty to know what was going
on.”
But Paton insisted the bill should only extend the system for two
years. And, as a candidate who raises money traditionally, he wanted
something for nonparticipating candidates, so part of the legislation
called for increasing the limits on what individuals could give them,
from $390 to $615. Certain political action committees would be able to
give $4,160, up from $1,600.
Todd Lang, the executive director of the Citizens Clean Election
Commission, says he had little choice but to support the increases for
privately funded candidates.
“That’s the difference between a legislative compromise and a voter
initiative,” Lang says. “You have to give up a lot to get what you
want.”
But on the morning of Wednesday, July 1, as tired lawmakers greeted
dawn at the Capitol, supporters were unable to get enough votes to pass
the bill in the Senate.
With the collapse of the reform package, the future remains dim,
unless Gov. Jan Brewer calls for a special session to specifically
address Clean Elections.
“Clean Elections is dead right now,” says Rep. Steve Farley, a
Tucson Democrat. “That’s the way it looks right now. Candidates in safe
districts might use it, but if you’re in a swing district, it’s
completely not a good thing to do, because people are going to put in
money on the other side, and you’re going to be in trouble.”
Lang says he’s holding out hope that Silver changes her mind and
rules in the favor of Clean Elections and allows matching funds, but he
acknowledges that candidates need “to know what the rules of the game
are” if they’re going to use the program.
No matter what happens with the Clean Elections reform package,
Paton says he plans to keep pushing a proposed ballot referendum that
nearly made it to voters this year. SCR 1025 would have asked voters to
ban the use of public dollars on political campaigns. It passed the
Senate and survived two House committees, but never came up for a final
House vote.
“I’ll bring it back next year,” Paton says. “As a Republican, it
seems disingenuous to me advocate for smaller government and then
support a system to benefit yourself that expands government. It
doesn’t compute.”
This article appears in Jul 9-15, 2009.
