This summer, a select group of Democracy Matters students are working the grassroots in both Iowa and New Hampshire in our “Restore Democracy” project. Their goal is to elevate campaign finance reform and particularly the public financing of elections as important topics in the 2016 presidential elections. As the first caucus and primary states, both Iowa and New Hampshire are critical in setting the agenda for the election.
Our students are “bird-dogging” all the candidates – attending the numerous campaign events, asking questions about campaign finance reform, and getting each candidate on record concerning public campaign financing. In addition, they plan to send copies of the hundreds of signatures they are collecting on our DM “Democracy Pledge” to each candidate to demonstrate the strong grassroots support for public financing of elections.
They are also spending time on college campuses, recruiting students to create and lead new Democracy Matters chapters in the fall, chapters that will continue their money in politics organizing long after the candidates have moved on. And finally, they are developing coalitions with adult groups, creating a network of public campaign financing supporters to further push for change.
This program was certainly ambitious, yet we have already seen incredible results. Over a dozen new Democracy Matters chapters will be in Iowa and New Hampshire this fall, joining our nationwide list of campus organizations. Over 1,000 signatures on Democracy Pledges have been collected on campuses and in communities. And our students have attended candidate forums and events for Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush, Donald Trump, Lindsay Graham, Jim Webb, Martin O’Malley, Bobby Jindal, Chris Christie and Ted Cruz. During a number of these events, DM interns were able to directly ask and record candidates’ views on public campaign financing. While some candidates were unsupportive, DM organizers were able to get Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley, and Hillary Clinton on record in support of public financing of election campaigns! We can now hold these candidates to their commitments to support meaningful reform.
Democracy Matters summer interns continue to do this important grassroots organizing work, work that can ensure that candidates cannot ignore serious discussion of the devastating problem of money in politics as well as the solution of public campaign financing.