My last post was rather jaded toward campaign finance reform. But as many students have expressed in blogs, money has a lot to do with parties, candidates, and the party system... which may make things less democratic.
I criticized this issue due to lack of a concrete way for money in politics to get in control. I followed up with what campaign finance people on campus to see what they thought about my concerns. I found out they are doing some interesting things with petitioning for local legislation, make college government "clean" (meaning many different things and will have to be well defined) as well as gaining support from candidates who are willing to run a "clean election." What I was surprised to find out was that they have had some success in a few states/elections (2 to be exact). Here's some evidence of the success of this reform effort from Democracy Matters:
"Maine:• In 2006, 78% of the Maine legislature had run as "clean candidates," owing their allegiance to no one but their constituents.• The number of competitive races doubled between 1998 and 2004, and the number of incumbents re-elected declined.• In 2004, 8 of 11 third party candidates (Green Party) qualified for the same level of public financing as other candidates."
Like we talked about in class today (10-18-07), money affects access, which affects how the entire party system looks and works. There are obviously other structural and psychological factors that may.
Maybe Wisconsin could be the next or maybe it will have to start with UWM's Student government. It seems that if enough people care about money in campaigns (like expressed in 421 blogs) there could be an increase in "clean elections."
This is a class blog for the students of POLSCI 421: Party Politics in America at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee.
