Green Party of New Jersey Position Paper

Campaign  Finance  Reform

The draft of this position paper on campaign finance reform was produced by Green Party member Earl Gray. The Green Party of New Jersey formally adopted this position at the Executive Committee meeting of February 15, 1998.

Earl Gray accompanied the presentation of this position paper with an extensive and well researched background document which includes sections on the current system, reform options being put forward by Kerry/Wellstone/Glenn, Doolittle, Mann/Ornstein/ Taylor, McCain/Feingold, Torricelli, the state of Vermont, and the ACLU, plus New Jersey-specific data, and a three page bibliography. Well done, Earl!

Position Paper: Clean Money Campaign Reform

1. CMCR is a voluntary full public funding system;
2. It is a system in which candidates will no longer have to raise money from private sources, although they may choose to do so;
3. Candidates who volunteer for full public funding would receive a set amount of money from a publicly financed election fund. In Maine that amount has been set equal to 75% of the average cost of the prior two campaigns, on the assumption that at least 1/4 of all previous campaign expenses have gone to fund raising itself (with public funding candidates will not need fundraising money);
4. Spending will be limited to that amount;
5. Once a candidate passes a carefully determined qualification threshold, she/he would receive the fixed amount of public money for the campaigns (primary and general);
6. To be eligible, candidates would be required to raise a relatively large number of $5.00 qualifying contributions listed by donor signatures from within his/her electoral district;
7. Eligibility also will be conditioned on a candidate's agreement not to raise or spend any private money whatsoever (during either the primary or the general election periods), and limiting spending to the fixed amount of public funds received;
8. Prior to the primary, the candidate would be allowed to raise a very limited amount of "seed money," with a $100 per donor limitation on contributions. This money could only be spent on the start-up costs of qualifying for public financing and could not be spent during the primary and/or the general election periods;
9. All the candidates running for the same office who met the qualifying tests would receive equal amounts of public financing;
10. The system would be strictly voluntary (thus conforming to the Free Speech concerns of the Buckley v. Valleo decision). Candidates would be free to reject the Clean Money option and raise private money or use their own money to finance their campaigns;
11. "Soft money" would be banned. (This is money which is supposed to be used only for generic party-building purposes, but more often is currently used by parties to finance specific candidacies);
12. Partial funding (matching funds) will be banned;
13. Publicly financed candidates who are outspent by privately financed opponents will receive additional "equalizing funds." In the Maine version, the additional funding is capped at 100% of the original amount received; but a higher cap could be set for Federal elections;
14. Candidates targeted by "Independent Expenditures," as determined by an election commission, would receive the same kind of "equalizing funds." This doesn't mean the disappearance of Independent expenditures (including those made by parties on behalf of their candidates). However, there is a likelihood that the equalizing provision will help to reduce these expenditures; and, in the "Clean Money" environment, there is likely to be strong voter disapproval of independent spenders who try to circumvent the system.