US Supporters
In the US, SB 752, the Fair Elections Now Act, calling for publicly funded elections in U.S. Senate campaigns, was sponsored in the 111th Congress (2009–10) by Senators: Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Arlen Specter (D-PA). A companion bill, H.R. 1826, was introduced in the House, sponsored by John Larson (D-CT), Chellie Pingree (D-ME), and Walter Jones (R-NC). Unlike the Clean Elections laws in Maine and Arizona, H.R. 1826 dids not include the "rescue funds" provision, perhaps due to concern about constitutionality in the wake of the Davis decision. Neither bill moved out of Committee.
Others who have endorsed clean elections include:
- Barack Obama as an Illinois senator was the first co-sponsor of the 2007 version of the Durbin-Specter bill.
- John Bonifaz, founder of the National Voting Rights Institute
- Bill Bradley (D-NJ), former U.S. Senator
- John Edwards (D-NC), former U.S. Presidential Candidate and Senator
- Adonal Foyle, NBA player, and founder of Democracy Matters
- Cecil Heftel (D-HI), former U.S. Representative
- Ned Lamont (D-CT), former U.S. Senate candidate
- John McCain (R-AZ), U.S. Presidential Candidate and Senator (McCain has also expressed opposition to a national version of the system and has not endorsed or co-sponsored the bills introduced in the U.S. Senate.)
- Ralph Nader of Connecticut, U.S. Presidential Candidate
- Janet Napolitano (D-AZ), former Governor, current Secretary of Homeland Security
- Bill Richardson (D-NM), U.S. Presidential Candidate and Governor
- Eliot Spitzer (D-NY), former Governor
- John Eder Green Party leader who utilized Maine's public financing to win office to the Maine State Legislature
Read more about this topic: Clean Elections
Famous quotes containing the word supporters:
“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“No Government can be long secure without a formidable Opposition. It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be managed by the joint influences of fruition and hope. It offers vengeance to the discontented, and distinction to the ambitious; and employs the energies of aspiring spirits, who otherwise may prove traitors in a division or assassins in a debate.”
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881)