DELAWARE CAMPAIGN FINANCE AND ELECTION REFORM
The information provided about our Association's Delaware Campaign Finance and Election Reform Act will be discussed under the following topics:
Many efforts have been made to provide candidates for our national and state elective public offices the option of being provided public funds for their campaigns. At the national level, the highest percentage of support from House and Senate members for campaign finance reform has been a 20% support level. In the states, eight states have passed campaign finance reform laws similar to our Delaware act and seven have funded the implementation of these acts. Other states are near state legislative support for enactment of their reform laws. In 2006, nearby Maryland only missed passage of their reform act by one vote. The reform on this and other issues such as single payer health care are being accomplished at the grass roots state levels. The two states that have had more experience with their implemented campaign finance reform acts are Arizona and Maine. In Maine, for example, 84% of their current state legislature's House and Senate members were elected with public campaign funds. Arizona had similar success with public campaign funding as have other states implementing their campaign finance reform laws.
Our Delaware Association believes the importance of this issue area and our reform act should be understood and strongly supported by voting citizens and ALL candidates for the 68 state level decision-making elective offices in both executive and legislative branches of our state government. When elected to public office with public campaign funds, this enables our elected politicians to be free to represent citizens' interests and not special interests who funded their campaigns. States implementing their campaign finance reform laws are realizing another significant benefit for improved democracy by having many more candidates vying for their elective public offices. Rarely is an incumbent unopposed on their ballots.
Our Delaware Campaign Finance and Election Reform Act will be administered by a state Commission on Governmental Ethics and Campaign Practices. The Commission shall be composed of five commissioners with no more than two from the same political party. The Governor shall appoint all commissioners from a list of names provided by a nonpartisan, independent advisory panel. The Commission shall be included within the Delaware Department of Elections for administrative purposes only. Those candidates for city, county and state elective offices who elect to qualify for and use public campaign funding will be designated participating candidates and those who choose private funding will be non-participating candidates. To qualify as a participating candidate our act sets a number of registered voters within the election district to be served by the office sought who must contribute $5 to the candidate's campaign and sign a petition supporting the candidate. The act has limiting amounts all candidates can use for beginning seed money, use of personal funds, funds from political parties, special interests and amounts spent on campaigns by outside interests such as media advertising by supporters. Ongoing accountability for all sources of funding is built into our law. The Delaware Superior Court shall have jurisdiction over all offenses under our law. Based on campaign funds spent over the past three election cycles for all state, county and city elective offices covered under our act, amounts of public campaign funds allocated for each elective office were established. These amounts are for both the primary and general elections in each cycle. If a privately funded non-participating candidate exceeds the amount of public funds provided a competitive participating candidate(s), our act provides for the participating candidate(s) to match dollar for dollar the campaign funds of all competitive private funded candidates.
Our act establishes a Voter Information Commission which will establish and administer a Voter Information Committee consisting of representatives of nonprofit organizations, political parties, print and broadcast media and interested citizens. The Voter Information Committee shall be authorized to establish a Voter Information Program for the purpose of providing voters with election-related information and fostering political dialogue and debate. A Voter Information Guide will be developed and distributed which will include important information about each candidate, including biographical material, whether candidate is funded by private or public funds, policy statements by the candidates on issues designated by the Voter Information Committee and when pertinent, candidates' voting records.
Every year our state receives a windfall of $300 million or more from an Abandomed Property account. We can provide full public campaign funding for three participating candidates in the primary election and three participating candidates in the general election for EVERY city, county and state elective office in Delaware for approximately ONE/HALF OF ONE PERCENT of this annual windfall gift. It could be less than this miniscule percentage will be needed as candidates will have the option of choosing private funding of their campaigns. If anyone doesn't believe this is a bargain, read our Association's Health Care page on this web site to understand funds being wasted and stolen because our current elected state officials represent special health care interests. Maine passed their single payer health care reform act after successfully implementing their campaign finance reform act.
This civic/political issue area and our Association's reform act is important to our recommended reforms on all other issue areas covered on our web site. Poll after poll, at both national and state level, show that 70% of citizens polled support the campaign finance reform our Delaware Act covers. In our state, a supportive coalition of nine statewide organizations learned about our act and endorsed it. The coalition was developed with and through Common Cause of Delaware. The Delaware League of Women Voters was the second of these organizations to join the coalition. Other Delaware organization that have endorsed and support our reform act are as follows: Citizens' Coalition for Tax Reform; Delaware Chapter, Association of Retired Americans; Delaware NAACP; Delaware Chapter, National Association of Social Workers; Green Party of Delaware; Independent Party of Delaware; and the Phoenix Community in Delaware.
After 3 years of coalition leaders efforts to inform and get the support of the 68 elected decision-makers in our state's executive and legislative branches of OUR state government, only 7% have shown interest in and support for this important act. What could be a better example of why every citizen and every organization interested in open, credible state government should study all of our Association's best knowledge information and recommended reforms on all 16 issue areas and join as member/owner tributaries in our movement. Our vision and purposeful mission is to have informed citizens identify, enlist and help elect credible, informed candidates for each state level elective office who will sign off on supporting our recommended reform changes explained on each issue area web site page. Our Candidate Survey form will be given all candidates for state level offices in the 2008 election cycle and their responses to our survey will be thoroughly disseminated. But our Association wants to identify and enlist, regardless of party affiliation, candidates we know are informed and committed to our sensible issue area substance and program and cost effective reform recommendations. We invite all Delaware citizens to study our Association's best knowledge information and recommended state level reforms for all 16 civic/political issue areas important in our state's future that are discussed on our web site, deinformedvoters.org.
Our nation's key resource for helping state level campaign finance reform laws and movements is Public Campaign. Their valuable web site is publicampaign.org. (Note one c in web site) State and national organizations such as Common Cause, the League of Women Voters and Public Citizen are all trying to get our state and national political decision-makers to support and enact legislation similar to our Delaware Campaign Finance and Election Reform Act.
Our Association's Issue Area Facilitator for this important issue and contact resource person is Ms. Elizabeth (Liz) Allen, long-time civic/political activist. She can be reached at 35451 East River Drive, Millsboro, DE 19966. Her phone number is (302) 888-2826 and email address is Elzbthalln@aol.com. Our Association would like to acknowledge the contributions made by John Flaherty, former leader of Common Cause of Delaware who helped inform and enlist a number of the organizations supporting our Delaware Campaign Finance and Election Reform Act.