Clean Elections - in The United States

In The United States

Some form of clean election legislation has been adopted by ballot initiative in Maine, Arizona, North Carolina, New Mexico, Vermont, Wisconsin, and Massachusetts. In addition, clean elections have been incorporated to law in Connecticut and at the municipal level in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Portland, Oregon. However, the systems in Massachusetts and Portland were later repealed, while Vermont's was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court on First Amendment grounds.

These laws have increasingly run into constitutional problems in the Courts. Substantial portions of the Vermont system were found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Randall v. Sorrell. Portions of Connecticut's statute were held unconstitutional in August, 2009, on grounds that it unfairly discriminated against third party and independent candidates, but the core program of full funding of constitutional and legislative candidates remains in place. In July 2010 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit upheld portions of the District court's order but allowed the core program to continue.

On June 27, 2011, ruling in the consolidated cases Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett and McComish v. Bennett, the Supreme Court deemed unconstitutional the matching-funds provision of the Arizona law. The decision throws similar provisions in Maine, Wisconsin, and elsewhere into doubt. As a result, the Wisconsin legislature eliminated funding for its judicial elections in 2011.

Additionally, voters have defeated publicly funded elections in several recent referendums. In Massachusetts the system was repealed after a 2002 advisory initiative in which voters voted nearly 2 to 1 against using government funds to pay for political campaigns. Portland, Oregon's program was narrowly repealed by voters in a 2010 referendum. In 2008, a Clean Elections bill, the California Fair Elections Act (AB583) passed the California Assembly and Senate and was signed by Governor Schwarzenegger. To take effect, however, the law had to be approved by voters in an initiative in June 2010. On June 8, 2010, California voters defeated the measure by 57% to 43%. An earlier Clean Elections ballot initiative, Proposition 89 was also defeated in California in 2006, by 74% against to 26% in favor. A Clean Elections ballot initiative in Alaska failed by a 64% to 35% margin in August 2008,.

In April 2010, the Colorado Initiative Title Setting Review Board approved the text of a Proposed Initiative #53 on Campaign Finance, and signature gathering began, but the measure failed to qualify for the 2010 ballot.

Additionally, a pilot program adopted by the New Jersey state legislature in 2004 and applying in select legislative districts was abandoned by the legislature after the 2007 state elections.

Under a "clean elections" system, candidates wishing to receive government financing collect a certain number of small "qualifying contributions" (often as little as $5) from registered voters. If they collect enough of these qualifying contributions, they are then paid a flat sum by the government to run their campaigns, and agree not to raise any other money from private sources. Candidates who are outspent by privately funded opponents may receive additional public matching funds, but this provision was held to be unconstitutional in the aforementioned Supreme Court decision in Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett."Opinion analysis: Campaign subsidies in peril?". http://www.scotusblog.com/?p=123128.

Because candidates may refuse government funding and continue to rely on voluntary contributions without spending caps, supporters have argued that Clean Elections measures do not run afoul of the Supreme Court's decision in Buckley v. Valeo decision, which struck down mandatory spending limits as an unconstitutional restriction on free speech but also affirmed that elections can be publicly financed. However, the Supreme Court's decision in Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett has eliminated a key part of Clean Elections laws aimed at encouraging participation by holding that the state could not award extra "matching funds" to try to make sure that "clean" candidates had as much money as candidates who chose not to participate.

Comprehensive Clean Elections systems have been in effect in Arizona and Maine since 2000. Not surprisingly, a majority of candidates accept the grants rather than raise private contributions. In Maine, three quarters of state legislators ran with government subsidies provided by a Clean Elections Program. In Arizona, a majority of the state house and both the Republican and Democratic candidates for Governor ran Clean Elections campaigns in 2006. There has not yet been a statewide election in Maine in which both the Republican and Democratic candidates were financed through the Clean Election System.