From the Dispatch

Supreme Court 2009-2010: Pro-Corporate, But Continued Trend Towards Deferral to State Authority

Nathan Newman — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 11:26:57 -0400

Yesterday, the Supreme Court ended its term with a bang with a ruling in McDonald v. City of Chicago that state gun control regulations can be struck down by federal courts based on the Second Amendment. While the number and scale of blockbuster decisions was not so high this session, the singular impact of the Citizens United case earlier in the term unleashing unregulated corporate money on elections, combined with the dangerous implications of the Rent-A-Center, West v. Jackson arbitration decision, emphasizes the pro-corporate bias the Supreme Court has increasingly exercised in recent years.

As detailed below, other decisions on public university governance of student groups, property rights challenges to beach restoration programs and regulation of ballot initiative processes, did continue the trend in recent terms of the Supreme Court deferring to state authority in major cases. And criminal justice cases continued to be a mixed bag of protecting individual rights versus upholding state discretion.

Table of Contents:
- Citizens United and the Supreme Court’s Pro-Corporate Bias
- Supreme Court’s Deferral to State Authority
- Criminal Justice
- Conclusion

Citizens United and the Supreme Court’s Pro-Corporate Bias

There is little question that Citizens United will be one of the major cases that defines this year’s term—and in many ways will frame the legacy of the rise of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito whose presence on the court has led to the dismemberment of campaign finance regulation.

"A Massive New Threat of Corruption and Corporate Control": With Citizens United, the Supreme court has given corporations the same free speech rights as individuals and allowed unlimited election spending by corporations when not coordinated with candidates.

U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said recently,

The Citizens United decision -- yet another 5-4 decision [opens] our democratic system to a massive new threat of corruption and corporate control. There is an unmistakable pattern. For all the talk of umpires and balls and strikes at the Supreme Court, the strike zone for corporations gets better every day.

To emphasize its hostility to restrictions on the power of the wealthy over our elections, the Supreme Court ordered a freeze of Arizona's public financing matching funds system which gives candidates participating in public financing additional funds when opponents spend above benchmarked levels of spending. This means that publicly-financed candidates will be eligible to receive only one-third of the money to which they'd otherwise be entitled.

Letting Corporate Arbitrators Decide if Their Own Decisions are Unfair: In Rent-A-Center, West v. Jackson, the Supreme Court - by the same pro-corporate 5-4 vote lineup of Justices - further closed the courthouse door for individuals abused by their employers. The Court held that employees cannot only be forced to have complaints about racial discrimination or other employer abuses decided by private arbitrators (a reality decided in previous terms), but also that where an employee feels the terms of the arbitration agreement are unfair and unconscionable, it is up to the corporate-chosen arbitrator to decide if the arbitration agreement is unfair. In this case, for example, the arbitration agreement limited claims an employee might bring against the employer, while exempting those claims that Rent-a-Center might raise, and restricted an employee’s ability to gather evidence.

Instead of allowing a judge to decide whether the agreement to arbitrate could be enforced, the Supreme Court majority leaves it to the arbitrator chosen by the agreement alleged to be unfair to decide the issue, cutting off access to the courts even for the most basic threshold issue of whether these arbitrators and the rules imposed are a fair substitute for a day in court.

Privatizing Democracy: So just as corporations now have unlimited rein to use their money without regulation to dominate elections, those same corporations now have de facto have authority to run private courts to decide the legal rights of their own employees without little or no judicial restraint.

Supreme Court’s Deferral to State Authority

However, beyond these pro-corporate decisions, the Supreme Court, often with surprising configurations of majorities, continued its trend in recent years of deferral to state authority in more cases where core corporate interests are not at stake.

States and the Second Amendment: The exception to the trend this year was McDonald v. City of Chicago, which extended the Second Amendment to restrict state gun regulations. But even in that case, the majority went out of its way to affirm that many traditional gun control regulations will still be upheld even where an individual right to keep firearms for self-defense in the home is protected. Since most states have their own constitutional and statutory reasonableness test for gun regulations, the practical effects of McDonald may end up being relatively limited.

Rejecting “Takings” Doctrine: While right-wing constitutional lawyers for years hoped to create a majority to limit most local government land regulations as illegal “takings” under the Constitution, the Court in Stop the Beach Renourishment v. Florida Department of Environmental Protection not only rejected a property rights challenge to a state beach-erosion statute, but Justice Anthony Kennedy refused to even give a fifth vote to the proposition that a court ruling could ever constitute a “taking” of private property, a sign that most reasonable land use regulations will be protected from federal judicial second-guessing in the future.

Universities and Groups Excluding Gay Students: In Christian Legal Society v. Martinez, state universities retained their authority to deny funding to student groups that exclude certain students, such as gay and lesbian students, from membership. The Court upheld the University of California-Hastings' policy of requiring student groups to take on "all comers" as a prerequisite to official school recognition as a reasonable and viewpoint neutral restriction.

Public Disclosure of Ballot Initiative Signers: Given increasing use of fraud by those promoting right-wing ballot initiatives, progressives won an important victory in Doe v. Reed, in which the Court held that disclosure of signers of political ballot initiatives did not generally violate the First Amendment (although they might be able to in the future argue that specific harms could lead to some restriction on disclosure in a future case). In a strong argument for respecting state regulation of ballot initiatives, Justices Sotomayor, Stevens and Ginsburg wrote:

These mechanisms of direct democracy are not compelled by the Federal Constitution. It is instead up to the people of each State, acting in their sovereign capacity, to decide whether and how to permit legislation by popular action. States enjoy “considerable leeway” to choose the subjects that are eligible for placement on the ballot and to specify the requirements for obtaining ballot access (e.g., the number of signatures required, the time for submission, and the method of verification).

Reviewing Public Employee Text Messages: In a slightly idiosyncratic case, the Court in City of Ontario v. Quon unanimously held that a police department’s decision to review the text messages of employees who exceeded the monthly limit on their office pagers in order to determine whether the monthly limit should be raised was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.

Criminal Justice

Criminal justice decisions by the Supreme Court invariably combine a combination of invocation of individual rights, discussions of state authority and obscure procedural explorations. While cases this term had few singular disruptions of previous principles, they had a number of clear incremental changes effecting state criminal proceedings. (See this ACLU writeup for an extended list of additional cases).

State Convictions and Immigration: Of import for current debates on the role of states in immigration policy, the court ruled in two cases that courts had to carefully weigh how state criminal statutes interact with federal deportation rules:

In Padilla v. Kentucky, the Court held that attorneys have an obligation to carefully advise their clients of the immigration consequences of pleading guilty. In this case, the defendant– a lawful permanent resident for 40 years who pled guilty to drug trafficking – was incorrectly advised by his lawyer that he was unlikely to face deportation because of his long stay in the United States.
In Carchuri-Rosendo v. Holder, a unanimous Court ruled that defendant’s conviction for possession of a single Xanax tablet without prescription, following an earlier state court conviction for possession of less than two ounces of marijuana, could not qualify as an aggravated felony under federal immigration law, and thus did not render the petitioner ineligible for potential discretionary relief from deportation.

Restricting Miranda: The Court significantly limited restrictions the Miranda “right to remain silent” in a series of cases limiting the Miranda ruling:

In the most critical case, in Berghuis, Warden v . Thompkins, a 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court affirmed that a suspect did not properly invoke his right to remain silent, so statements were properly admitted in court. Justice Sotomayor, writing for four dissenters said, “the Court today creates an unworkable and conflicting set of presumptions that will undermine Miranda’s goal.”
In Florida v. Powell, the Court held that police warnings that a suspect had a right “to talk to a lawyer before answering any questions” adequately complied with Miranda, since the right does not require a particular set of words for police compliance.
In a 6-3 Graham v. Florida decision authored by Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court found a Florida law unconstitutional under the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause where juvenile offenders could be sentenced to life in prison without parole for a non-murder.
In Maryland v. Shatzer, the Court held that police did not violate the law by collecting incriminating statements from a person who had invoked his Miranda rights two and a half years earlier, and that the right against interrogation lasts only 14 days after invocation.

In other key decisions effecting state proceedings:

In Bobby v. Van Hook, Wong v. Belmontes and Porter v. McCollum, the court created a series of new standards for when counsel is so ineffective as to warrant a new trial.
In Presley v. Georgia, the Court concluded that a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a public trial had been violated when the public was excluded from the jury voir dire proceedings.
In Holland v. Florida, a 7-2 decision authored by Justice Breyer, the Court agreed that an attorney could harm his client so badly that the defendant’s time to seek habeas must be extended.

Conclusion

Elana Kagan’s likely replacement of Justice Stevens on the Court is unlikely to change the broader trends on the Court and states will continue to face the challenge of reining in the corporate election spending unleashed by Citizens United and protecting access to justice in the courts eroded by the Rent-a-Center case. As People for the American Way wrote in a recent report, Rise of the Corporate Court: How the Supreme Court is Putting Businesses First, “the conservative-tilting Court has reached out to enshrine and elevate the power of business corporations.”

While deferral to state authority has emerged as an increasing consensus among the Justices on a number of issues, lurking in the dissents of the most conservative Justices are even more extreme pro-corporate and right-wing views that with one more ally could push legal doctrine in ways that would completely erode democratic decision-making over economic and social policy. So even the more positive trends on the Court warrant only partial relief, since small changes in personnel in the future could readily enable the more activist impulses of the block of the four most right-wing members of the Court.

Resources:
Progressive States Network - The Supreme Court and the States 2008-2009: Trend Defending State Authority Emerges this Term
Scotusblog - Everything you read about the Supreme Court is wrong
ACLU - ACLU Summary of the 2009 Supreme Court Term
People for the American Way - Rise of the Corporate Court: How the Supreme Court is Putting Businesses First
Alliance for Justice - The Corporate Court

Update: Options for Reining in Corporate Election Cash in Wake of Citizens United Supreme Court Decision

PSN — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 12:52:49 -0400

The Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission (FEC) decision earlier this year gave corporations the same First Amendment rights as citizens with regard to advocating for or against political candidates, unleashing a flood of new corporate cash into state races and a range of new state policy initiatives that aim to protect the integrity of their elections. In response, states are pursuing other reforms, such as requiring shareholder approval for corporations spending election cash, tighter public disclosure and attribution in ads, public financing of elections, and calling for a federal constitutional amendment to reverse the Citizens United decision.

Laws in twenty four states have been directly affected by the Supreme Court’s ruling and many states have already taken action in response to the decision. Alaska’s Department of Law issued a memo this February stating that the state's laws prohibiting independent expenditures by corporations and labor unions in political campaigns were likely unconstitutional, but that laws related to contributions to candidates, coordinated expenditures, disclaimers, and disclosures were not directly affected. In Michigan, the Department of State provided clarification on which portions of the Michigan Campaign Finance Act dealing with the prohibition of independent expenditures by corporations, labor organizations, or Indian tribes were unconstitutional. In Wyoming, the House debated HB 68, which would have expressly referenced the Supreme Court’s decision by saying, “The prohibitions… shall not be construed to prohibit any organization… from exercising its first amendment rights," although the bill ultimately failed to pass.

Other states have denounced the decision as harmful to the process of promoting clean and fair elections. Speaking at a US Congressional hearing on the Supreme Court decision, Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock championed Montana’s laws banning corporate campaign spending in candidate elections that have been in place for about 100 years and warned that corporate money can have extreme effects on local campaigns in states like Montana, where in 2008 the average State Senator won with a total of $17,000 in spending. Read more about Attorney General Bullock’s comments here.

In California, Asm. Pedro Nava introduced Assembly Joint Resolution 3 which calls on Congress to “pass and send to the states for ratification a constitutional amendment to restore the power of Congress and state legislatures to safeguard democracy by placing appropriate limits on the ability of corporations to influence the outcome of elections through political campaign contributions and other expenditures." Hawaii's HR 204, Idaho's HJM 12,
New Jersey's AR 64, Pennsylvania HR 653, South Dakota HCR 1018, and Washington SJM 8027 similarly call on Congress to change the federal constitution to reverse the Citizens United decision.

Still, the main avenue for reform will be alternative approaches to regulating campaign donations. See this page at People For the American Way (PFAW) for an extensive list of individual state bills, but the following are a few examples of state approaches.

Requiring Shareholder Approval: A national poll commissioned by PFAW reveals that following Citizens United, 75 % of respondents believed that a publicly traded company should get shareholder approval before being able to spend money in an election. Bills introduced in Maryland (HB 616, HB 986, and SB 570), New York (A 9948), Iowa (SF 2354), and Wisconsin (SB 540 and AB 812) reflect these findings. If passed, these bills would require companies to get approval from their Boards of Directors and/or stockholders before making independent expenditures. South Dakota (SB 165) and West Virginia (HB 4646 and SB 692) also attempted to pass such provisions, but failed. If passed, these shareholder approval laws could have a great impact on independent expenditures as many companies will not want to attempt the arduous approval process. The Center for Competitive Politics provided a brief overview of some of the potential legal challenges for states in requiring such shareholder approval.

Disclosure and Attribution: States including Alaska, Arizona, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Dakota, Tennessee, and West Virginia are seeking to apply either old or newly-written laws surrounding campaign finance disclosure and political advertisement disclaimers. Language in Connecticut’s HB 5471 would require the maker of an independent expenditure to identify itself. In television or Internet video advertising, this means that an image of the entity’s Chief Executive Officer must accompany the advertisement, with a personal audio statement saying, “I am…(name of entity’s Chief Executive Officer or equivalent), …(title), of…(entity). This message was made independent of any candidate or political party, and I approved its content.” In Tennessee, Rep. G.A. Hardaway and Sens. Reginald Tate and Beverly Marrero are seeking to pass bills (HB 3713/SB 3798) that would make it a class B misdemeanor if corporate funds are used to help or hinder a candidate’s election campaign.

Public Financing of Elections: Ultimately, any restriction on corporate money may be doomed to fail given the ability of companies to launder political support through multiple channels. Instead of restricting "bad" money, many analysts see public financing of elections as the best chance to ensure that alternative voices to corporate speech get heard by the public.

Current public financing systems mostly provide small grants to state parties (10 states), give money to candidates in some selected races (16 states), and offer tax breaks to citizens who contribute to political campaigns (9 states). The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) and Common Cause provide a breakdown of public financing provisions in the states.

A few states, including Arizona, Connecticut and Maine, have more comprehensive “Clean Elections” statutes by which state legislative candidates can receive almost all of their campaign money from public funds, and in exchange, candidates are prohibited from raising private money. While voluntary, this version of public financing can have a huge impact on the way money and politics work together. Maine’s program under the state's Clean Election Act has been hailed as particularly useful in that candidates running for Governor or for the State Legislature raise seed money contributions in order to qualify for full financing from the state. In 2008, 81 percent of Maine’s legislative candidates participated because public opinion favors candidates who run clean. See Public Campaign's website for more on clean election approaches.

With corporate political advertisements already hitting newspapers and the 2010 elections just around the corner, states are beginning to discuss action but most states have a long way to go in finding alternatives to stop corporations from taking over elections in the wake of Citizens United.

Resources:
Progressive States Network -States Act to Limit Judicial Ruling Allowing Corporations to Spend Directly to Elect or Defeat Candidates
People for the American Way - Legislation to Fix Citizens United
Brennan Center for Justice - Shareholder Consent is Key in Political Spending
National Conference of State Legislatures- Life after Citizens United
Public Campaign - In-Depth Resources on Public Financing of State Elections

Theresa Chalhoub is a Progressive States Network Legal Intern. She is a second year student at the New York University School of Law.

Texas Again Demonstrates the Pitfalls of Privatization

Altaf Rahamatulla — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 13:23:58 -0400

This past week, the Dallas Morning News revealed that a key figure who contributed to the privatization of Texas' food stamp eligibility program is now receiving taxpayer dollars to help fix the problems that the private system created. Gregg Phillips, who was Deputy Commissioner at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) and led the push for privatization a few years ago, now heads AutoGov Inc., a company that has received $207,500 from the state government in the past four months to assist in eliminating the errors in the provision and eligibility determination of the state's food stamp program.

As Mike Gross, Vice President of the Texas State Employees Union, relates, "The whole thing smells very bad. We're now hiring the guy who got us in the mess in the first place. It is absolutely stunning."

The "Revolving Door" Between the Government and Private Contractors: As PSN noted in our report, Privatizing in the Dark, a significant issue with privatization is the potential corruption that results from the revolving door between private contractors and state departments. Gregg Phillips personifies this trend. Before landing a key role at the Texas HHSC, he performed a similar function in Mississippi, "where he... handed out a major state contract and then gone to work for that firm. Phillips hired Chris Britton as a consultant for designing the bidding process, after which Britton went on to work for Accenture, the winning bidder. After Phillips himself left government service, Britton’s company joined with one founded by Phillips to land a $670,000 state contract from the Texas government."

Texas' Experience with Privatization: In 2005, Texas granted Accenture a $899 million contract to operate the state's food stamp eligibility program. However, the venture quickly turned sour, leaving thousands of people without benefits for which they were eligible. Under Secretary of Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Kevin Concannon, finds that the failed privatization system resulted in "a five-year slide" in processing food stamp applicants. In fact, Texas now has the worst performing food stamp program in the entire country. Under Secretary Concannon additionally discovered that Texas could be receiving $1 billion more in federal food stamp funds and serve over 650,000 additional applicants if it approved more applications of eligible Texans. Furthermore, Texas supermarkets are losing approximately $1 billion annually in food sales because of the problems with food stamp provision in the state. Not only has Texas failed to protect its residents, provide benefits to eligible children and families during an economic downturn, and lost almost one billion dollars in potential market activity, but the state is now paying an official who championed the privatization scheme to find remedies for its monumental errors.

These types of incidents undermine public accountability. Progressive lawmakers should take action to prevent such debacles from occurring by either halting failed privatization schemes, similar to Indiana Rep. Gail Riecken's efforts to end privatization of social services in her state, or require corporate transparency in the state contracting process, much like initiatives in Alabama, Arizona, Hawaii, and Vermont.

Resources:
The Dallas Morning News - Exclusive: State privatization champion gets contract to help clear up welfare mess
Illinois PIRG - Privatization and the Public Interest
Progressive States Network - Corporate Transparency in the State Budgets
Progressive States Network - Privatization During an Economic Downturn: Still Inefficient and Problematic
Progressive States Network - Privatizing in the Dark
United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) - Letter to SNAP Commissioners

Close the Revolving Door on Legislators-Turned-Lobbyists

Nora Ranney — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 12:07:40 -0500

While the shenanigans of former U.S. Representative-turned-pharmaceutical lobbyist Billy Tauzin and other legislators-turned-lobbyists make national headlines, the abuse of power in the states often receive scant attention. A recent decision by the U.S. District Court for Southern Ohio reminds us that the revolving door among legislators-turned-lobbyists is as much a problem in the states as we hear about at the federal level. And in Ohio, the problem isn’t going away. Just this month, an Ohio court ruling has struck down the state’s revolving-door laws, which required a one-year cooling period for elected officials and their staff to wait-out before accepting jobs where their political influence would be in play. The court based its ruling on the fact that the state had not established a link to corruption and “even cited the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that lifted the ban on corporate contributions in federal elections, saying the high court's reasoning ‘refutes the premise (that Ohio's revolving-door law) is necessary to prevent former General Assembly members from having special access to the legislative process.’”

In light of these court decisions and the lack of ethics standards, states continue to grapple with the issue -- facing a range of consequences along the way. Without meaningful reform, many elected officials and their staff will continue to exploit public service and the connections that come with it for personal gain. And industries continue to exploit through greed, buying connections through lucrative salaries – often times negotiated before the legislator’s term has ended.

According to the National Conference on State Legislatures, 19 states currently have a one-year cooling period and at least eight states have a two-year cooling period. And this year alone, at least 29 states have new legislation to tighten the rules on business and ethics. In fact, StateNet analysts report identifying more than 3,000 bills on this issue since the start of the year.

Among other remedies, legislators should implement ethics reform similar to that proposed by Common Cause and allies:

Prohibit elected officials from gaining undue lobbying access by increasing the “cooling off” period from one to two years before they can lobby their respective legislature.
Prohibit high level executive staff and other very senior executive personnel from lobbying the department or agency in which they worked for two years after they leave their position.
Prohibit legislative staff and officers from lobbying contacts with the entire legislative body for one year, instead of just their former employing office.
When appropriate, require that executive and legislative branch employees who leave government positions and seek to lobby on behalf of Indian tribes face the same revolving door provisions as others, with an exemption for those who serve as elected or appointed officials of Indian tribes.

Resources:
NCSL Table: "Revolving Door" Prohibitions Against Legislators Lobbying State Government After They Leave Office
NCSL Revolving Door Laws - Eye on Ethics
The Center for Public Integrity: State lobby rules
Common Cause - Ethics in Government
Stateline - Lobbyists Spend Big On Statehouses, Study Says
Progressive States Network - Close the Revolving Door

States Act to Limit Judicial Ruling Allowing Corporations to Spend Directly to Elect or Defeat Candidates

Christian Smith-Socaris — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 13:12:10 -0500

Portending a sharp increase in corporate political spending, the Supreme Court has ruled (Citizens United v. FEC) that corporations enjoy the same speech rights of citizens when it comes to advocating the election or defeating political candidates. Elected officials, including U.S. President Barack Obama, have denounced the ruling as striking at the heart of our democracy by putting corporations on an equal footing with real people when it comes to basic constitutional rights. Progressives who are trying to counter the oversized influence of giant corporations on our democracy have long viewed the granting of full first amendment rights to corporations as the moment when these creations of the state would end up rampaging on the political scene like Frankenstein's monster. That day has now arrived and a forceful response is being pursued by policymakers at all levels of government.

Most States Don't Even Have Basic Disclosure Requirements: As expected, much of the early debate has focused on the ability of the federal government to write new rules which will stem the tide of corporate cash likely to flood the political landscape in the mid-term congressional elections and beyond. Yet, only 24 states currently prohibit corporations from spending their treasury funds to promote or attack a candidate for state or local office, and many lack the disclosure and disclaimer requirements that serve as a last line of defense for citizen control over our elections. And even if the federal government does respond forcefully, state and local elections will not be covered in federal statute, meaning that states must act independently to protect their own democratic processes. Given this, there clearly is an imperative for states to strengthen their campaign finance laws, placing limits on corporate spending where possible and allowing access to information on corporate spending to support or oppose which candidates.

Using Corporate Accountability to Rein in Spending: Lawmakers at both the federal and state levels are developing and moving forward with a series of proposals that will seek to directly counter the impact of the ruling by protecting the interests of shareholders, remove tax benefits for political spending, prevent foreign-owned corporations from electioneering, and ban political spending by government contractors, among other things. These are in addition to measures to strengthen current disclosure and disclaimer requirements. The first state to act has been Maryland, where Senators Jamie Raskin and David Harrington, and Delegate Brian Frosh have introduced a package with the following measures:

Require any corporate executives to obtain a two-thirds vote of the shareholders ratifying the specific expenditure. (This is the same percentage of the shareholders required for mergers and acquisitions.)
Prevent "pay to play" corruption (and its appearance) by forbidding state contractors to make campaign expenditures on behalf of political candidates and their campaigns.
Mandate that corporations disclose their expenditures to the Board of Elections just as any other campaign expenditure would be reported.

Speaking to the critical need for these reforms Sen. Raskin commented that:

"[a] strong democracy requires a wall of separation between corporate money and public elections, but five justices on the Supreme Court last week took a sledgehammer to that wall. In Maryland, we are beginning to explore ways to contain the damage of this devastating opinion. By assuring that corporate political expenditures only occur when two-thirds of the shareholders agree, that all such expenditures are disclosed, that state contractors not participate in partisan campaigns at all and that corporate political expenditures not be tax-deductible, we have started to spell out a program that can be used nationally to make sure that 'we the people' doesn't turn into ‘we the corporations."

Corporate Transparency in State Budgets as a Tool: Another key part of campaign spending accountability is making clear how different companies are benefiting from government spending, whether from direct subsidies, government contracts or various corporate loopholes. State lawmakers working with Progressive States Network on our Corporate Transparency in State Budgets campaign are seeking to make sure that key information on all of that corporate largesse from government is publicly available. Any time corporations are seen spending money on elections, information on the spending and tax deals they receive from state governments should be instantly available to voters to put any election claims in perspective.

See here for model corporate transparency legislation and a resource page for the campaign.

Challenging Judicial Bias Towards Corporate Power: In addition to his legislative response, Sen. Raskin and others are also working to generate pressure for a federal constitutional amendment through the website FreeSpeechForPeople.org. Several other groups are moving in the same direction as well (see here, here and here). And moving on another track are advocates from the Fair Elections Now Coalition who have brought together over 40 business leaders to denounce the corporate takeover of campaigns and pledge to not engage in political speech with corporate treasury funds. Members of this coalition are also emphasizing that while these are some basic rules we can lay down to reduce the flood of corporate cash, it is clear that without alternative, clean, funding mechanisms there is no way to free our democracy from the grip of corporate power.

What does the future hold for campaign laws? Likely more change is coming. The current court has taken every opportunity (and even created the most recent opportunity) to strike down restrictions on independent expenditures. In a case argued just yesterday, the DC Court of Appeals made clear that they will strike down the $5000 cap on contributions to political non-profits. This trend makes it even more important that states develop robust disclosure and disclaimer requirements, restrictions on government contractors, requirements for corporate accountability, and clean elections campaign finance reform.

Resources:
Citizens United v. FCC
The New York Times - Justices, 5-4, Reject Corporate Spending Limit
Maryland Corporate Campaign Package Press Release
Fair Elections Now
Free Speech For People
Public Campaign - Clean Elections Overview
Progressive States Network - Corporate Transparency in State Budgets

Anti-Tax Forces Lose at Ballot/Split Decision on Gay Unions/Other Election Analysis

Nathan Newman — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:30:19 -0500

While the governors' races in New Jersey and Virginia got most of the headlines, other state races around the country delivered a mixed message by voters on a number of issues.

Anti-Tax Forces Continue to Fail at the Ballot Box: The defeat of three anti-tax initiatives that were on the ballot in Washington state and Maine left the anti-tax movement as the big losers of the night -- and this just continues a multi-year string of defeats by the right-wing on tax issues. In both states, voters rejected the so-called TABOR ("Taxpayer Bill of Rights") initiatives that would have created rigid formulas restricting the power of states to raise revenue that would have crippled those states' capacity to provide services like education, health care, emergency services, and public safety. Voters in Maine also rejected a proposal to slash the excise tax on new and hybrid cars, which would have undermined local revenue around the state.

Back in the early 90s, the right-wing managed to pass a TABOR system in Colorado at the ballot box, which had disastrous consequences, including large declines in K-12 funding and increased higher education tuition rates. The measure additionally hindered the state's ability to address the lack of medical insurance coverage for many children and adults (see the PSN Dispatch on "TABOR's Disastrous Record in Colorado"). This led voters to partially repudiate TABOR at the ballot in 2005. And when the right-wing tried to enact TABOR-like initiatives in states across the country in 2006, progressives highlighted fraud in signature collecting in multiple states and the issue was thrown off the ballot in Michigan, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma and Missouri. On Election Day, voters in Maine, Nebraska and Oregon finished the job in voting down the remaining TABOR initiatives. And in 2008, anti-government tax measures were defeated overwhelmingly in Massachusetts, North Dakota and Oregon. So the 2009 results in Maine and Washington reflect that voters reject the rhetoric of the right-wing anti-tax movement -- a message more elected leaders should recognize as they grapple with budget crises needing new revenue.

Split Vote on Gay and Lesbian Unions: Even as Washington state voters supported a broad domestic partnership law providing many of the legal protections of marriage, Maine voters by a close margin rejected a state law granting full marriage equality to gay and lesbian partners. While the Maine loss was heartbreakingly close, supporters of marriage equality took heart from the fact that 47% of Maine voters supported it, something that would have been impossible even a decade ago. And as we detailed this past Monday, young voters overwhelmingly support marriage equality, so victory is inevitable in coming years. "As a young person in Maine, I actually feel very confident that marriage equality will be the law in our state at some point in my lifetime. I hope it's in the next couple of years," Maine House Speaker Hannah Pingree said.

Voters Continue to Support Public Investments: Despite tough economic times, voters continued to support initiatives to dedicate funding to long-term initiatives for economic growth and environmental sustainability:

In Maine, voters approved a $71 million bond issue for improvements to highways and bridges, airports, public transit facilities, ferry and port facilities, including port and harbor structures that will make the state eligible for over $148,000,000 in federal and other matching funds.
In New Jersey, voters approved a bond act that would authorize $400 million in funds to acquire and develop lands for recreation and conservation purposes, preserving farmland, buying flood-prone or storm-damaged properties, and historic preservation projects.
Texas voters established a "National Research University Fund" to dedicate $500 million to turning seven Texas universities into top Tier 1 research institutions.

Although Gov. Ted Strickland opposed the initiative, Ohio voters, desiring jobs and economic growth, approved casinos in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo. Supporters of the measure estimate the casinos will create 34,000 jobs, bring $200 million in licensing fees and generate an estimated $651 million annually in revenue for Ohio. Ohio voters also approved selling $200 million of bonds to provide services and compensation to residents who are veterans of conflicts in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq.

Denver Anti-Immigrant Measure Rejected: Denver voters soundly rejected a so-called car impound initiative, which was designed to target undocumented immigrants by requiring police to seize the vehicles of every unlicensed driver they stop.

Mixed Message for Progressives in Candidate Elections: In New York, a Democrat won a state Assembly seat that no Democrat had won since before the Civil War, even as progressive Gov. Jon Corzine lost in New Jersey. In the recent Virginia Governor's race, the conservative Democratic candidate spent much of his time explaining how he opposed a public option in health care, opposed robust climate change legislation, and opposed reforms to protect the freedom of workers to form labor unions. His subsequent loss highlights an important, perennial message for progressive candidates: when given a choice between a conservative and a conservative Democrat, voters will choose the true conservative.

Results were even more mixed when you look down ballot. New Jersey Democrats held onto their large majorities in the Assembly with little change, while conservatives in Virginia gained a number of seats in their House of Delegates. And conservatives gained majority control of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court by winning a hotly contested race for a state Supreme Court seat. Yet as Progressive Majority details, local progressive candidates did well throughout the country, although progressives lost in a few upscale suburban districts around New York City.

On the Ballot: Defeating TABOR, Defending Relationship Equality Laws & A Roundup of Other Ballot Issues

Nora Ranney — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:12:59 -0400

While New Jersey and Virginia are getting a lot of national press for high-profile governors races, the action on state ballots this year is in Maine and Washington, with scattered other issues playing out in additional states.

In both Maine and Washington, right wing groups have the same anti-tax initiative on the ballot and similar efforts to repeal laws giving gay and lesbian relationships protection under state law -- with the same kind of deception and fraud by the same right wing organizations that we've seen year after year in ballot initiatives.

Along with giving a roundup of the range of initiatives on the ballot in this off-year election, this Dispatch will give special focus to the campaigns against TABOR and defending relationship equality laws.

Table of Contents:

- TABOR Resurfaces in Maine, Heads to Washington

- Defending Wins on Same-Sex Relationships

- Fixing the Initiative Process

- Other Ballot Issues in November

TABOR Resurfaces in Maine, Heads to Washington

The right wing anti-tax movement has seen repeated failures in recent years, yet they are again promoting anti-tax ballot initiatives in Maine and Washington. So-called TABOR ("Taxpayer Bill of Rights") initiatives would, if approved, create a rigid spending formula that would cripple those states' capacity to provide services like education, health care, emergency services, and public safety.

In Maine, TABOR failed at the ballot in 2006 but is back again this year with the backing of the conservative groups Maine Heritage Policy Center (which also supported it in 2006) and Maine Leads, which is under investigation for violating campaign finance laws by hiding the identity of its funders. Behind the I-1033 TABOR initiative in Washington, is the ubiquitous Tim Eyman - referred to by many progressives and conservatives alike as a “professional initiative salesman,” who personally profits from his prolific ballot initiative career. Anti-TABOR forces are branding the message "Vote NO on Tim Eyman's I-1033."

Even as communities are postponing and canceling road work because of a lack of funding, Maine voters face an additional anti-tax measure that would reduce funding to roads by cutting the state's excise tax for new and hybrid vehicles. This would be a big tax break for those able to afford a new car, but would force many communities to raise local property taxes to make up for the lost revenue, leading a broad-based coalition called Maine Can Do Better to deem it a similar threat to state prosperity as TABOR.

TABOR's Disastrous Record in Colorado: TABOR passed in Colorado in 1992, leading to terrible results, including large declines in K-12 funding, higher education tuition rates, and hindering the state's ability to address the lack of medical insurance coverage for many children and adults (see our past Dispatch on "TABOR's Disastrous Record in Colorado"). While voters in Colorado partially repudiated TABOR at the ballot in 2005, the legacy of over a decade of TABOR's effects live on in a state ranked one of the lowest levels in K-12 education, drop-out rates, and immunization rates, among other problems.

TABOR uses a rigid formula restricting spending levels based on a simplistic calculation tying spending to population and the consumer price index (CPI). When health or education costs rise more than the specific CPI inflation calculator (as they have in recent years), states have to cut services and programs.

How Coalitions are Fighting TABOR: Broad coalitions of education advocates, health care organizations, community groups, unions and even chambers of commerce have united in both Washington and Maine to oppose to the TABOR measures. The No on I-1033 campaign has highlighted the lessons from Colorado and produced videos detailing personal stories about the likely effects of TABOR. In Maine, the No on TABOR II campaign is emphasizing how TABOR will undermine state efforts to recover from the recession and the campaign brought a number of Colorado Republicans to the state to talk about the damage TABOR did in Colorado.

Defeating TABOR initiatives in Washington and Maine will help stop any trend toward more of these ballot initiatives in the future. In fact, since 2005, TABOR has failed to be enacted in all 28 legislatures where it was introduced, but according to the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center (BISC), any TABOR victories in 2009 could encourage several state legislatures or signature collection campaigns to put it on the 2010 ballot -- the most likely candidates being Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, and Missouri.

While recent polls in both Washington and Maine show narrow leads for the TABOR initiatives, anti-TABOR leaders in both states express confidence that the broad-based coalitions speaking out on its devastating potential effects will win out on election day, as they have repeatedly in other states around the country.

Resources:
Progressive States Network - The Taxpayers' Bill of Goods
No on I-1033
Washington State Budget & Policy Center - Toxic Twins: I-1033 Mirrors Colorado's Corrosive TABOR
No on TABOR II and Maine Can Do Better
Maine Center for Economic Policy - TABOR in Maine
Ballot Initiative Strategy Center
The Bell Policy Center - TABOR
Center for American Progress, TABOR
Center on Budget and Policy Priorities - TABOR: A Threat to Education, Health Care, and Social Services
The Tax Policy Center - "The Economic Effects of TABOR

Defending Wins on Same-Sex Relationships

In contrast to 2006, when the anti-relationship equality movement was on the offensive with a spate of constitutional amendments banning all forms of state recognition for same-sex couples, this year, conservatives are on the defense, having to go to the ballot to try to rollback significant legislative advances in both Washington state and Maine legalizing same-sex unions.

Marriage Equality on the Move: In the 2009 legislative session, four state legislatures (ME, NH, VT, CT) passed bills that were signed by their governors to include same-sex couples in their respective state's civil marriage law. In Washington, since the state introduced its first nondiscrimination bill 20 years ago and passed it in 2006, the legislature has followed up year after year with additional relationship protections that add heft to domestic partnership protections. In both Maine and Washington, conservatives took to the ballot referendum process to rollback those gains:

In Maine, after the crushing blow of Prop 8, by which California voters rejected their state supreme court's ruling to allow civil marriages for same-sex couples, voters are well poised to turn the tide by becoming the first state to defend marriage at the ballot box.
In Washington, voters will be faced with Referendum 71 and decide whether to approve the state legislature's recent expansion of the domestic partnership law to protect couples' right to care for each other, especially in times of crisis.

Deceptive Tactics by the Right Wing: As noted above, initiative campaigns are under fire for ethics violations for fraudulent signature gathering processes. In Washington, signature gatherers for Referendum 71 were caught on video lying to citizens about the law and used deceptive signature petitions in order to trick people into signing their petitions.

While conservative groups like National Organization for Marriage (NOM) are funneling money into Maine, it is a hard sell to argue that the sky will fall with "traditional marriage" surviving quite well in next door Massachusetts with its own marriage equality law (which has existed for over five years). Using the same PR firm as was used in California, the anti-marriage equality campaign is recycling the same threat, that allowing this law to stand would mean altering the eduction system to "promote homosexuality." But a recent poll shows that the public isn't buying it: roughly 62 percent of respondents said they do not believe gay marriage will be taught in public schools if the law is allowed to take effect.

Setting the Stage for Equality Fights in 2010: If marriage equality supporters protects their victory in Maine, that will leave only Rhode Island left to solidify New England as a region for equal civil marriage laws. And while NOM's website talks about fighting marriage equality in "the Northeast and West Coast," they don't seem to want to mention that state legislators refused to repeal civil marriage equality as established by the Iowa Supreme Court or that just this past year, Wisconsin Governor Doyle signed domestic partnerships into law, highlighting that "pro-traditional family" arguments are failing, even in the heartland. In New Mexico, for example, Governor Richardson has pledged to put the domestic partnership issue on the legislative agenda for the 30-day budget session, and other states are moving to enact protections where legally feasible (some states ban any recognition, no matter how small, for same-sex relationships).

Resources:
Maine No on 1 campaign
Washington Approve R-71 campaign
The Task Force - Marriage/Partner Recognition
Human Rights Campaign - about marriage and relationship recognition
Ballot Initiative Strategy Center - LGBT issues on the ballot
Williams Institute at UCLA - economic analysis on Maine - economic analysis on Washington

Fixing the Initiative Process

The high-profile fights on TABOR and relationship equality in both Washington and Maine show how the initiative process has been hijacked in recent years by monied interests, often using the same right wing front groups to try to undermine progressive goals -- and at the least to force progressives to waste money defending them.

As the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center and others have documented, fraud and deception have become all too common in the signature gathering process for state initiatives. Reform of the process is desperately needed to fix the system and assure that initiatives reflect real grassroots concerns and not just those of elite right wing interests playing games with the ballot process.

As we detailed in our Dispatch Reforming the Ballot Initiative Process: Making Direct Democracy Work, there are a number of disclosure and anti-fraud measures that, if enacted, would prevent these kinds of abuses of the ballot initiative process.

Resources:
Progressive States Network - Reforming the Ballot Initiative Process: Making Direct Democracy Work
Progressive States Network - Right Wing Fraud Derails Tax Revolt
Ballot Initiative Strategy Center - Signature Reform Guidelines
Ballot Initiative Strategy Center - The Campaign Finance Reform Blind Spot

Other Ballot Issues in November

While likely to get less national attention, there are other important initiatives on state ballots around the country. BISC has a roundup by state here, but a few key state decisions include:

Bond and Investment Measures: As a likely prelude to 2010, both Maine and New Jersey are moving large bond measures to invest in the state:

In Maine, there is a $71 million bond issue for improvements to highways and bridges, airports, public transit facilities, ferry and port facilities, including port and harbor structures that will make the state eligible for over $148,000,000 in federal and other matching funds.
In New Jersey, a proposed bond act would authorize $400 million in funds to acquire and develop lands for recreation and conservation purposes, preserving farmland, buying flood-prone or storm-damaged properties, and historic preservation projects.

Slate of Texas Constitutional Amendments: A number are non-controversial, but a few would have real impact, including:

Streamlining and equalizing the appraisal process for property taxes;
Protecting public access to beaches on the Gulf of Mexico;
Restricting eminent domain by limiting state and local governments use of eminent domain to promote economic development; and,
Establishing the "National Research University Fund" to dedicate $500 million in a fund to turn seven Texas universities into top Tier 1 research institutions.

Other Ballot Initiative Issues: Additionally, Maine voters will be asked to weigh in on:

Repealing the state's 2007 school consolidation law, which exempted many urban areas and led to opposition in rural parts of the state.
Another initiative would legalize medical marijuana in the state, following fourteen other states that have legalized medical marijuana for the treatment of a host of health problems such as HIV/AIDS, cancer, hepatitis C, and Alzheimer's disease.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court Election: Given the recent history of business groups engineering the takeover of state high courts, there are high stakes in Pennsylvania where ideological control of the high court, currently divided 3-3 between business and consumer-labor friendly judges, will be decided by elections on November 3rd. Labor unions in particular have made the race a priority in both get-out-the-vote and campaign funding decisions.

Resources:
Maine No Bad Roads: Vote No on 2
Progressive States Network - Corporate Influence on State Supreme Courts Show Need for Reform

Judge Ruling in Favor of Big Contributor Ruled Illegal by U.S. Supreme Court

Christian Smith-Socaris — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:12:00 -0400

When a coal company spent $3 million to help elect the Chief Justice of the West Virginia Supreme Court and that Chief Justice turned around and overturned a $50 million jury judgment against the company, many commentators thought it stunk of corruption and that the judge should have recused himself from a case involving his biggest political supporter.

This week, the US Supreme Court agreed. The Court argued in the much anticipated case, Caperton v Massey, that a judge must recuse her or himself from hearing a case when there is "the probability of actual bias on the part of the judge or decision maker." This is, of course, a high bar and one that will only rarely be reached in practice -- but a $3 million contribution equal to more than all other campaign spending combined amounts to "extreme" facts requiring recusal, since otherwise there would be no limit on judges' ability to decide cases involving their biggest political supporters.

The ruling was also significant because it dealt with not direct campaign contributions, but independent expenditures uncoordinated with the Chief Justice's campaign. This has given campaign finance scholars some hope that there are five votes for at least some regulation of independent campaign spending, such as 527 committees, which can spend unlimited amounts of money in elections.

Judicial Independence is Under Attack: As we've highlighted in a previous Dispatch, the problem of money in judicial elections has been growing fast. Between 2000 and 2007, state Supreme Court candidates raised twice as much in campaign contributions than was raised in all of the 1990s. And this isn't happening by accident. Business groups and conservative activists, including Karl Rove, have specifically targeted these races because the potential reward is great, yet the cost of flooding these races with cash is relatively low compared with other statewide or national races that often have less of a direct payoff for contributors.

In West Virginia in particular, the appearance of corruption has cast a pale over the state's highest court. The previous chief justice was also involved in a scandal related to Massey Energy for earlier having refused to recuse himself from the same case that caused the current controversy. In that instance pictures surfaced of the chief justice vacationing with Massey's CEO in Monte Carlo at the same time that the Massey was appealing the lower court ruling against them that the West Virginia Supreme Court ended up overturning. Thankfully, in that instance the chief justice was voted out.

Restoring Judicial Independence: In many of the 36 state that elect judges, both the public and judges themselves are losing faith in the process. But there are several that have systems which prevent or deter outrageous spending on judicial campaigns and the appearance or reality of injustice that results.

Clean Judicial Elections: North Carolina and New Mexico have both adopted public financing of judicial elections. North Carolina's extremely popular program has seen majority participation among candidates, and almost all winning candidates are now clean elections participants. Public financing of judicial campaigns is also supported by the American Bar Association, which adopted it as an official policy in 2002.
Merit Selection with Retention Elections: The so-called "Missouri plan" combines independent merit selection with a process of retention elections where voters can recall a justice if unsatisfied with his or her job performance. Such systems have almost uniformly been free of expensive campaign spending and politicized campaigns, and these systems instill confidence in the public. In Missouri, 68 percent of voters trust the Missouri Supreme Court to adhere to the letter of the law rather than their own political beliefs.

Both of these systems work well to squeeze special-interest money out of the judicial system, helping to ensure a fair hearing for consumers and workers. Hopefully the notoriety that the Caperton case has generated will inspire more states to take back their judiciaries from the corporate interests that have hijacked them in many places.

Resources
Justice At Stake Campaign
Brennan Center for Justice - Fair Courts
American Bar Association - Report of the Commission on Public Financing of Judicial Campaigns
American Judicature Society - Judicial Selection in the States
Progressive States Network - Shutting the Courtroom Door: How the Corporate Right Mobilized in the States
North Carolina Voters for Clean Elections - Judicial Elections
Democracy North Carolina – A Profile of the Judicial Public Financing Program, 2004-2006
North Carolina Judicial Campaign Reform Act Summary
New York Times - Rendering Justice, With One Eye on Re-election
New York Times - Justices Tell Judges Not to Rule on Major Backers

New York Attorney General Uncovers National Pay-to-Play Scandal

Christian Smith-Socaris — Thu, 21 May 2009 12:03:42 -0400

New York's Attorney General, Andrew Cuomo, is in the midst of a two-year investigation into kickbacks paid to state political staff in exchange for the opportunity to profitably manage the investments of New York State's public pension fund. That investigation has now prompted a national effort with a multi-state task force and the Securities and Exchange Commission working together to uncover rampant pay-to-play abuses. Nationally there is over $2 trillion in US public pension assets.

Pay-to-play in the public pension fund context takes two forms - campaign contributions and direct kickbacks. The New York AG's investigation began as an investigation of kickbacks paid to key staff in the office of Former Comptroller Alan Hevesi. One former top aide of Hevesi's, Hank Morris, has been indicted on over one hundred charges related to $15 million in payments he received from money managers looking for public pension fund business. One of the "middle men" who arranged the payments has now plead guilty to securities fraud.

Regulatory Failure Leads to Predictable Problems: Beyond the charges in New York, the investigation has unveiled a wild west of unregistered "placement agents" who charge money managers to market their services to pension funds. It appears that half of these agents are not registered with the federal government as required by law. And it is this basically unregulated business that has been fertile ground for kickback schemes. The other side of the corruption that has been uncovered is garden variety campaign contribution pay to play where donors to the public officials that run the pension funds are used to gain access to fund business. In 1999 the SEC dropped plans to prohibit campaign contributions from those seeking business with a public pension fund. The proposed restriction was in response to a series of previous pay to play incidents, and observers at the time predicted more problems when the SEC backed off from implementing the rule.

The SEC is now reconsidering the rule, but the State of New York is already using its power to rein in these corrupt practices. Placement agents and fees have now been banned in New York. And just days ago, Carlyle Group, the second largest private equity firm in the nation settled with the Attorney General for $20 million. Carlyle admitted paying more than $12.3 million in fees to a company that employed Hank Morris. In addition, Carlyle partners and employees contributed $78,000 in campaign contributions to Hevesi. The firm has agreed to adopt a new code of conduct barring most campaign contributions to pension fund officials in What the NY AG called "a revolutionary agreement."

Investigations Now Active in Four States: These investigations and action have lead to a wave of revelations of dubious conduct across the country. In fact, some of the "placement firms" appear to have operated in many states. California's Public Employee Retirement System has moved to require disclosure of placement agents, as is being considered by many other states . New Mexico is also investigating pay to play in its pension system. That investigation has snared Gov. Richardson's former Chief of Staff, who has been accused in a lawsuit of pushing state officials to make certain mortgage-related securities. Additionally, New Mexico and Connecticut have fired Aldus Equity Partners, and investment firm that allegedly took part in another multimillion dollar kickback scheme. The SEC filed charges against the company last month.

As the multi-state task force gets up and running, observers expect that these investigations will continue to spread across the country. With little oversight and trillions of dollars in the pension systems, this has been a scandal waiting to happen. And once again the states have had to take the lead in bringing people to justice, because the feds, as is their habit, have been asleep at the switch.

Resources:
Progressive States Network - Reduce Influence of Money in Politics
NY AG Cuomo - Cuomo Announces Landmark Settlement with Carlyle Group to Eliminate Pay-to-Play in Pension Funds Nationwide
Daily News - NY Pay-to-Play Scandal Seems National in Scope
Workforce Management - Public Pension Funds Scurrying to Cut Off Future Pay-to-Play Action
New Mexico Independent - A Hard Time for Aldus Equity
Washington Post - Carlyle Settles Pension Probe

Open Space for Campaign Reform Created by Former Illinois Governors' Woes

Christian Smith-Socaris — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 10:37:12 -0500

With one former Governor in jail for racketeering and another removed and indicted for selling political appointments for large campaign donations, now might just be the time that Illinois finally reforms its government. The new governor, Pat Quinn, has formed the Illinois Reform Commission. The Commission is tasked with making recommendations within 100 days on how to reform the government and finally stemming the corruption for which the state has long been famous. The commission has already identified loose campaign finance regulations and the lack of transparency as the primary drivers of corruption in state government. Now they are traveling around the state to hear from experts and citizens on what they think needs to be done.

At the most recent public forum Commission members heard from several witnesses that the lack of campaign contribution limits are the fundamental problem with Illinois politics. Cindi Canary of the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform told the Commission "Time and again, our political scandals can be boiled down to one common element: the unbridled quest for campaign money." And while the current system is "obviously not working," lawmakers have "a profound interest in ensuring that the status quo is not changed." One strong piece of evidence to support those contentions is that lawmakers have not funded enforcement of the modest reform that they passed last year, which prohibits people or businesses with government contracts of $50,000 or more from making political contributions to the state officeholders who award the contracts.

At a different meeting of the state legislature's Joint Committee on Government Reform held days later, the same issue came up again when Author Scott Turow, a member of the Executive Ethics Commission, said government ethics reform “cannot proceed effectively unless it’s also accompanied by campaign finance reform.” Regular folks who have come to speak at the Reform Commissions hearings have also expressed strong support for campaign reform, including public financing of elections. It is clear that a concensus is forming on the need for serious campaign finance reform in Illinois, however, only time will tell if the resistance that has prevented reform in the past will be overwhelmed by the string of scandals plaguing the state.

Resources

Progressive States Network - Reduce the Influence of Money in Politics
Illinois Reform Commission
Illinios Campaign for Political Reform (ICPR)
ICPR - Tainted Democracy
Galesburg Register-Mail - 'Pay-to-play' demonstrates need for reform, panel told