Fair Elections

2012 GOP Nomination Contest Affirms Value of New Rules

Rob Richie | Posted 04.24.2012

Read More: Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, Proportional Representation, Instant Runoff Voting, Fair Elections, Republican Nomination, Elections 2012, 2012 Elections, Gop Primary 2012, Politics News
Rob Richie

Before pundits rush on to talk of the general election and its dwindling number of swing states, we should reflect on the nomination contest and the impact of its rules.

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What Goldman's Whistleblower Teaches Us About Washington

David Donnelly | Posted 05.14.2012

Read More: Mitt Romney, Goldman Sachs, 2012 Election, Fair Elections Now Act, Campaign Finance Reform, Greg Smith Goldman Sachs, Greg Smith Resignation, Campaign Finance, Elections 2012, Fair Elections, Money in Politics, Greg Smith, Politics News
David Donnelly

Perhaps we need more Greg Smith-type truth-telling from those who have lived in the belly of the beast on Wall Street and in Washington. That'd be a good start. But while one person leaving with a kiss-and-tell story salves his or her conscience, it doesn't alter structural imbalances.

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Democracy For The 99%

Nick Nyhart | Posted 01.18.2012

Read More: Money and Politics, Bought Politics, Constitutional Amendment, Political Contributions, Clean Elections, Fair Elections, Larry Lessig, Citizens United, Politics News
Nick Nyhart

Hundreds of candidates across the country have already run and won depending only small donations combined with public funds.

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Universities Can Play a Role in Making Voting Accessible to Students

Robert M. Brandon | Posted 01.16.2012

Read More: Student Voting, Wisconsin, Fair Elections, College News, Voter ID Laws, Election Turnout, Colorado University, College News
Robert M. Brandon

Under-voting among youth is a chronic problem. Colleges and universities can help students get to the polls by institutionalizing practices to further educate, register and mobilize students to participate in elections.

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Unlimited Contributions Is Not the Answer to Unlimited Contributions

Nick Nyhart | Posted 01.03.2012

Read More: Fair Elections, Super PACs, Campaign Finance, Campaigning, Campaigning Reform, Campaign Finance Reform, Campaign Contributions, Politics News
Nick Nyhart

Our elections are increasingly funded and controlled by too few special interests. With super PACs and other outside groups taking in and spending unlimited checks, often from anonymous sources, the voices of everyday people are already being drowned out by wealthy special interests.

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Have You Checked Your Right to Vote Lately?

Robert M. Brandon | Posted 08.14.2011

Read More: Election Administration, Fair Elections, Voter ID, Voting Rights, Voter ID Laws, Scott Walker Voter Id Bill, Politics News
Robert M. Brandon

The amount of legislation proposed just this year aimed at making it harder for people to vote is staggering. To let partisan gamesmanship undo hard-won suffrage rights would be a tragedy.

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Why Washington Isn't Working for the American People

Bob Kerrey | Posted 06.11.2011

Read More: Fair Elections, Fair Elections Now Act, Campaign Finance Reform, Supreme Court Campaign Finance, Public Funding, Politics News
Bob Kerrey

Members of Congress report spending as much as a third of their time raising money for their reelection. This is time that they should be devoting to representing their constituents and running our country.

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Live Free or Die... But You Can't Vote

Robert M. Brandon | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Student Voting, Fair Elections, Student Vote, Student Voters, College News
Robert M. Brandon

Why, in 2011, would New Hampshire legislators find it pressing to restrict the voting rights of students, ignoring established constitutional principles in the process? Well, for one, it's a partisan thing.

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Lucia Graves

Watchdog Groups Rally Outside Chamber Of Commerce, As Calls For A Justice Department Investigation Mount

HuffingtonPost.com | Lucia Graves | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Campaign Finance Reform, Senator Al Franken, Campaign Finance, Al Franken, Lee Fang, Fair Elections, Chamber of Commerce, DISCLOSE Act, Chamber of Commerce Protest, Joe Sestak, Keith Olbermann, Video, Politics News

Watchdog groups rallied outside the Chamber of Commerce Thursday in the wake of a report by a liberal blog that the business lobby could be funding po...

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Lucia Graves

Public Funding Of Congressional Campaigns Widely Favored

HuffingtonPost.com | Lucia Graves | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Fair Elections Now Act, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi, Change Congress, Fair Elections, Common Cause, Special Interests, Public Campaign Action Fund, Campaign Finance Reform, Politics News

Voters in battleground districts strongly favor legislation that would let congressional campaigns be funded by the public, according to a new survey ...

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A chance to do something lasting

Bob Edgar | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Political Reform, Fair Elections, Fair Elections Now Act, Campaign Finance, Politics News
Bob Edgar

Sometimes history sneaks up on us. In the next two weeks, amid loud and - more than likely - inconclusive debates over tax cuts for the middle class, ...

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Nobody's Puppet

David Segal | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Lynch, Cicilline, Gemma, David-Segal, Corporate Contribution, Congress, State Budget, Clean Elections, Corporation, Renewable Energy, Fair Elections, Rhode Island, Citizens United, Public Financing, Hotel, Environment, Westin, Unions, Providence, Politics News
David Segal

Corporations and the extraordinarily wealthy have too much control over our government and over our society. We need to stand up and fight back. And that's why I'm running for Congress.

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Sam Stein

Good-Government Groups Spending Big Money On Fair-Elections Push

HuffingtonPost.com | Sam Stein | Posted 07.07.2010

Read More: Publicly Financed Elections, Public Elecions, Fair Elections, Ad Campaign Good Government Groups, Special Interest Fundraisers, Campaign Television, Good Government Groups, Obama Public Elections, Politics News

In a push to implement a publicly-financed election system and curb moneyed interests in politics, a pair of good-government groups is launching a tel...

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After Supreme Court Ruling, Time for a Campaign Finance Transplant Instead of More Band-Aids

Bob Kerrey | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Supreme Court, Public Funding for Elections, Fair Elections Now Act, Campaign Finance Reform, Supreme Court Campaign Finance, Fair Elections, Citizens United, Campaign Finance, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Politics News
Bob Kerrey

The DISCLOSE Act is good start at addressing the expected upsurge in independent political spending to influence elections, but may fall far short of addressing the source of the problem: direct special interest funding.

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Rattling a Fair Elections Foe

Wendy Block | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Proposition 8, California Clean Money Campaign, Center for Media and Democracy, Pro-Publica, Wwwsourcewatchorg, Open Secrets, MAPLight.Org, Fair Elections, Proposition 15, Tobacco, Littlesis, Frank Schubert, Sarah Palin, Eyes and Ears, Los Angeles News
Wendy Block

Thanks to my work last year on the Huffington Post's citizen journalism unit, I stumped an opponent of Proposition 15, the California Fair Elections Act (CFEA).

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Yes on Prop 15 -- One Small Step for Democracy

Michael Sigman | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Meg Whitman, Secretary of State, Lobbyists, Jerry Brown, Steve Poizner, Fair Elections, Proposition 15, Public Financing, Greece, Jesse Unruh, Supreme Court, San Francisco Chronicle, Voter Information Cards, Democratic Party, California Primary, Republican, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Los Angeles News
Michael Sigman

A victory for Proposition 15, the California Fair Elections Act, will mean that the race for the Golden State's Secretary of State will be a "clean money election" in 2014 and 2018. A small step, but a necessary one.

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Sam Stein

Support High For Strong Campaign Finance Legislation: Poll

HuffingtonPost.com | Sam Stein | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Fair Elections, Campaign Finance Legislation, Clean Elections, Poll Numbers Campaign Finance, Reform Campaign Finance, Ideal Landscape, Campaign Finance Law, Video, Politics News

In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling that corporations can spend an unlimited amount of money on political campaigns, the landscape has grown ripe ...

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A Call for a Convention

Lawrence Lessig | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Money and Politics, Corruption, Corporate Speech, Fair Elections Now Act, Constitutional Amendment, Lobbyists, Fair Elections, Constitutional Convention, Citizens United, Lawrence Lessig, Politics News
Lawrence Lessig

The problem in our democracy is not diversity; the problem is a Congress dependent upon the fundraisers. The problem is not corporate speech. The problem is the fundraising Congress.

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They Got Too Washington

Nick Nyhart | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Scott Brown, Fair Elections, Campaign Contributions, Politics News
Nick Nyhart

The Democrats surged into Washington, D.C. on a ticket of changing the way Washington works -- and they didn't. The majority didn't get too liberal, it got too Washington.

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No Fair Election In Honduras Under Military Occupation

Dana Frank | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Honduras Coup, Roberto Micheletti, Honduran Elections, Manuel Zelaya, Foreign Affairs, Honduras Zelaya, Fair Elections, Honduras, Barack Obama, Free-Elections, World News
Dana Frank

President Obama should refuse to recognize the results of the upcoming Honduran election and bring an end to the embarrassing isolation of the United States from the rest of the world.

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Supreme Court Poised To Radically Change Politics By Letting Corporations In: New York Times

New York Times | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Fair Elections, Corporations Elections, Corporate Elections Spending, Corporations Election Spending, Politics News

The Supreme Court may be about to radically change politics by striking down the longstanding rule that says corporations cannot spend directly on fed...

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Campaign Finance Reform: A Matter of National Security

Bob Edgar | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: John Murtha, Fair Elections Now Act, Fair Elections, Common Cause, Defense, No-Bid Contracts, Earmarks, Transparency, Politics News
Bob Edgar

Our bloated defense budget is another example of how campaign finance skews policy and spending priorities towards those who give the most and often have significant influence.

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It's the Process That Counts!

Jay Mandle | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Fair Elections, Fair Elections Now Act, Campaign Finance Reform, Campaign Finance, Politics News
Jay Mandle

Advocates of publicly funded political campaigns are handicapped because changing the way electoral efforts are paid for is a "process" issue.

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What's Next for Iceland: Ensuring a Fair Election in May

Iris Erlingsdottir | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Global Economy, Economic Crisis, Iceland Economic Crisis, Fair Elections, Iceland Global Economic Crisis, Iceland Economy Collapse, Iceland, Iceland Banks, World Economy, Iceland Economy, Economic Recession, Iceland National Bankruptcy, Financial Crisis, Iceland Financial Crisis, Iceland Bank Crisis, Icelandic Government, World News
Iris Erlingsdottir

Our only hope now is a peaceful transition from a corrupt plutocracy to the responsible liberal democracy we had fooled ourselves into believing we already had.

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Blago My Pay-Go: How Not to Sell an Illinois Senate Seat

Nick Nyhart | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Fair Elections, Rod Blagojevich, Public Financing, Public Campaign, Campaign Finance, Politics News
Nick Nyhart

While public financing won't eradicate blind ambition or bloated egos, it will make a political class more accountable to voters instead of big campaign contributors and take out a key thoroughfare for corruption.

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