News

Democracy Now advocates for 'clean elections'

By Casey Novak, Collegian Staff

December 06, 2004

Democracy Matters, a new organization on campus, discussed last Wednesday the importance of clean elections and ways to go about educating the student body on why the issue "so closely pertains to them."

"Clean" or "fair" election legislation means that the state gives money to qualifying candidates during an election, which would ideally keep big corporations out of politics.

"Clean elections basically allows average people to run," said Kate Baldacci, a junior psychology major and member of Democracy Matters. "So these are people that don't have the financial ability to run for office, advancing the idea that our country is built on- that anyone can be president."

Currently, Arizona and Maine are the only states that have clean elections.

"If a corporation gives several million dollars to one candidate and they are not a politically inclined corporation, which most of them are not, then a corporation can give any amount of money to a candidate," said DM member and junior English and Classics major Rachel Lewis. "We need to question why a corporation would do that unless there is some sort of payoff."

Baldacci asked the group to question what the corporation's incentive is to do that.

"If you start to ask those types of questions, you get to the reason why we are here," she said.

Democracy Matters is a national organization that was founded in 1996 by NBA player, Adonal Foyle of the Golden State Warriors. It has chapters on college campuses all over the country; however, it was just brought to the University of Massachusetts this semester and is not yet a registered student organization. While they are working towards that, their ultimate goal is to pass clean election legislation in Massachusetts.

"There is a possibility to get that done in two years," said Lewis. "So next year would be the year to lobby for it and get public awareness."

As it is now, candidates are able to receive unfixed sums of money from private founders, explained DM member Amara Levy-Moore. The junior, who is a political science and STPEC major, said that there are currently no provisions to even have clean election candidates in Massachusetts because there is no public funding available.

"If clean elections are passed it would only cost each citizen about $3-5 so you could pay a few dollars and then have your interests represented, instead of paying no money and having the interests of big oil companies represented," said Levy-Moore.

In 2002, a clean elections proposal was passed when it was on voting ballots in Massachusetts; however, it was not supported by legislation.

"A clean elections bill was passed by the people of Massachusetts in every single city in the state," said Baldacci. "So it got to legislation - the people that we elect to be our representatives - and they didn't want it. There is a disconnect there, it's the perfect case and point."

Lewis added that the bill was voted down by a silent vote, so the legislators that voted against it are not known.

"And they probably don't want us to know because it was such a popular bill, but Massachusetts didn't want to spend more money," she said. "Our only course of action is to get numbers of people involved, and that's why DM is so important on campus. These legislators will vote in their own personal interest unless the constituency really revolutionizes and throws all their votes against them in order to get people who are in favor of clean elections into office."

Democracy Matters works closely with Massachusetts Voters for Fair Elections, the organization that got the question of clean elections on the ballot in 2002. Since there was nothing on the 2004 ballot, Baldacci said she believes it is time to regroup and determine their goals for 2006.

"It's a definite goal of ours to lobby at UMass and get a petition signed and sent to Boston because first we need to organize the campus and then we can move to the community," she said.

Levy-Moore also stressed the importance of continually participating in the democratic process, rather than only being concerned when election time rolls around.

"The problem with American democracy is that people only feel obligated to participate once every four years," she said. "What we are trying to do is get clean elections passed so that we would be participating all the time. Our politicians would be held responsible because they will always be running for reelection and would want their constituents to be pleased with them. If their constituents want clean election candidates who run on clean money, then in turn the politician would be serving their constituents rather than corporations."

Democracy Matters, a non-partisan organization holds meetings every Sunday at 6:30 p.m. in the Blue Wall.