Issue Impacts

People care about a number of different issues - most of which are directly impacted by big money in politics. Select issues below to learn how Fair Elections is needed to help enact change on all these important issues. Each issue page addresses the ways in which private money influences the issue. For specific updates on these and other hot-button issues, talk to your Staff Link or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Data for specific industry and sector big money contributions can be found at www.opensecrets.org/industries/index.php.

EDUCATION ECONOMY ENVIRONMENT

CIVIL RIGHTS POVERTY WOMEN'S RIGHTS

Women's Rights

OVERVIEW:

· Women are only 14.8 percent of Congress and 22.5 percent of state legislators.

· Women candidates are typically underfunded compared to men.

· Issues like domestic violence, women’s healthcare, and problems of female-headed poor families are not addressed by most politicians today.

· Women according to national polls are generally more supportive of social problems supporting poor people, of education and health care programs, and less supportive of military action.”

“Women. Leaders. Legislators.” - http://www.neaction.org

“A woman’s place is in the House and the Senate.”

IN-DEPTH:

According to the Center for American Women and Politics, women hold only 25 percent of statewide elected offices, 22.5 percent of state legislative offices and 14.8 percent of seats in Congress. Considering women make up over half the U.S. population, these numbers are painfully low. The prevailing system that allows unlimited campaign contributions and expenditures is inaccessible and unaffordable for many women, who on average earn 76 percent of what men earn and have fewer connections to donor networks.

Women’s serious fundraising disadvantage is a major source of their underrepresentation in elective office. With Fair Elections, women have a chance to run for office without depending on big contributions. In states like Maine, Arizona, and Connecticut with “clean elections” public financing options for candidates, more women have run for office and won than with traditional private fundraising systems. Fair elections systems play to women’s strengths and make it more affordable to run for office.

For more information, read Joan Mandle's article Why Women Should Care About Getting Private Money Out of Politics.

For specific updates on these and other hot-button issues, talk to your Staff Link or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Data for specific industry and sector big money contributions can be found at www.opensecrets.org/industries/index.php

Poverty

OVERVIEW:

The increasing number of poor people in the United States reflects our growing and shameful inequality in income.

“I find that elected officials are utterly unresponsive to the policy preferences of low income citizens. The opinions of millions of ordinary citizens have NO discernible impact on the behavior of their elected representatives.” (Larry Bartel's “Unequal Democracy”)

· In the last 25 years a small group (less than 1%) of Americans has become fabulously rich. That same group contributes the vast majority of campaign money.

· In the last 25 years the bottom 20% of Americans has gotten poorer.

· Income inequality is greater in the United States than in any other developed democracy.

· Because poor and middle income people contribute so little to political campaigns, politicians ignore their needs and concerns.

There is hope…

We could lessen the extent of poverty and the level of income inequality – as do other democracies – if we had the political will. This will happen only when our elected officials actually are responsive to their constituents rather than to their big funders. With “fair elections” middle income and poor citizens – like everyone else -- can have a voice, run for office, and hold politicians accountable. With “fair elections” democracy would be less unequal.

IN-DEPTH:

Growing inequality is not unique to the United States. Almost all the countries of Europe have experienced increased income concentration among the wealthy, as have Australia and Canada. This widespread pattern suggests that a common cause is at work; that all these developed countries have been exposed to the same cause.

And the fact is that there are two such causal mechanisms: the effects of modern technology and the consequences of increased international trade with poor but growing countries. Both have undermined the bargaining position of workers with limited education and sophisticated technical skills, while at the same time strengthening the ability of those at the top of the occupational hierarchy. A strong, nearly universal tendency towards inequality has resulted.

However, with the exception of the United Kingdom, inequality has grown more in the United States than in any other nation. Though income polarization has occurred elsewhere, its extent has been much less than in the United States. The reason for this is that United States government policies do less than others in offsetting inequality. As a percentage of the gross domestic product, the United States ranks at or near the bottom compared to other developed countries in measures of worker training, subsidized employment, unemployment compensation and support for early retirement. What sets the United States apart is not the economic forces generating inequality but rather the extent to which our politics generates programs to counter those forces.

The weakness of corrective policies in offsetting income inequality in the United States is not due to public hostility to such efforts. Polling data since the 1970's have consistently revealed that the American people support government programs to reduce income differences. The weakness of such government efforts represents a failure of our political system, both because it reveals that our politics is not responsive to public opinion and because it has failed to address the corrosive impact of income polarization. Indeed, the subject of inequality is rarely part of our national political dialogue.

The inadequacy of the American political response to inequality is at least partially explained by the fact that our legislators are entirely dependent upon private campaign contributions. Office seekers and parties in Europe receive public subsidies. What that means is that politicians in the United States are forced to be more responsive to the conservative political preferences of the wealthy donor class. Their careers depend upon their satisfying their patrons. The consequence of this is the neglect of the programs that are needed to address the negative consequences of technological change and globalization.

A system of public financing of electoral campaigns would go far to open the political system to a consideration of the policies needed to correct income inequality. With such a system, a wider array of candidates and perspectives would be presented to the electorate than is the case now. Under those circumstances there is a strong likelihood that more effective programs to deal with globalization and technological change will be adopted. Greater income inequality, in short, is dependent upon greater political equality. The most effective route to both requires the adoption of clean and fair elections.

Civil Rights

OVERVIEW:

Money and wealth in the United States has traditionally been concentrated in the hands of a few, mostly older white males. Hence, it is no wonder that most of our government is representative of a very similar demographic.

“Civil Rights & Publicly Funded Elections” - www.neaction.org

· People of color make up 31% of the population but only 11% of elected state legislators and 14% of Congress.

· Candidates of color are typically underfunded.

· Civil rights enforcement has lagged.

“The great amounts of cash come from neighborhoods where wealthy, non-Hispanic white populations dominate.

IN-DEPTH:

Civil rights refers to the equal treatment of all citizens irrespective of race, sex, or other class. It refers to the promise of equal opportunity to get a job, to attend good schools, or live in the neighborhood of one’s choosing. It also refers to the promise of fair and equal political representation—the notion that all voices are equal in the creation and carrying out of the law.

Many years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the nation is far from this reality. In the United States, people of color have lower incomes and fewer financial assets than whites. They control fewer business interests and are disproportionately represented among those living in poverty. Thus, when it comes to running for office, people of color lack the access to personal wealth and the networks of large donors that many privately-funded candidates enjoy.

What’s more, because large political donations carry with them greater accessibility to politicians, the voices of regular citizens, who have less money to give, often are drowned out by the voices of the rich.

Publicly funded elections hold the promise of changing this imbalance. Where publicly funded elections exist today, they are making it possible for candidates of color and others of modest means to compete financially—even against candidates who run traditionally and receive large private contributions.

Although it’s too soon to gauge the long-term impact of publicly funded elections on minority representation in Arizona, some trends are emerging.

· First, the percent of candidates of color has increased each election since 2000, when the program was introduced.

· Second, the percent of candidates of color who use Fair Elections has jumped substantially each year.

· Third, candidates of color use Fair Elections to a greater degree than their white peers. Many say the availability of public funding was an important factor in their decision and ability to run for office. In a survey of candidates of color by the Fair Elections Institute, an overwhelming number said they could not have run without public funds.

Increasingly, Fair Elections are seen as a critical component of the broader struggle for racial justice and civil rights. They are an important step within a broader comprehensive agenda. The reforms are not just about cleaning up elections or electing more people of color. They are about improving neighborhoods and schools in communities with urgent needs.

In essence, publicly funded elections can play a role in changing a campaign finance system that has privileged some and hindered others based partly on race and wealth. In this sense, the movements for campaign finance and civil rights are in harmony—to develop an electoral system whose outcomes are determined not by wealth or race, but by notions of fairness, justice, equality and democracy.

Foreign Policy

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost American taxpayers over 1 trillion dollars. They have lasted longer than almost any war in American history, and have costs thousands of deaths on both sides.

Waging these wars has been a major reason that Congress is worrying about budget deficits and they have cost the American people untold harm by starving education, health care, infrastructure repair and other critical domestic programs.

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower; April 16, 1953

President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of a “military-industrial complex” dominating our society and creating the on-going need for defense and war spending. This has come to pass with defense corporations and energy corporations contributing millions to Congressional and Presidential campaigns. Our “adventures” in Iraq and Afghanistan were not necessary, invented wars to save us from non-existent “weapons of mass destruction” and “Islamic fundamentalism.” They have accomplished neither goal and in fact have only succeeded in creating more terrorists and generating hostility towards American across the Arab and Islamic world.

Fair Elections would allow us to elect a Congress that listens to the people rather than the military-industrial corporate complex. A policy of educational and economic aid that does not use the military is more likely to win us friends in the Islamic world. BRAC, the Bangladesh NGO working in education, health care, poverty-alleviation and women’s empowerment is a terrific model of how ideas of tolerance, diversity, educational attainment and empowerment can counter messages of violence. BRAC has projects in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and over 15 other poor countries. To learn more about Democracy Matters' partnership with BRAC email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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