Support For Small Donor Financing Has Long and Deep Roots Among Senate Democrats, Must Be Kept In S. 1

Support For Small Donor Financing Has Long and Deep Roots Among Senate Democrats, Must Be Kept In S. 1

Last week, Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) expressed a willingness to support a revised version of S. 1, the For the People Act – legislation which currently includes a small donor-based public financing system that will help get big money out of politics.

Also last week, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in reference to S. 1 that “public financing is a vital part of that bill. I’m very strongly for it. And so yes, we have to get that done.”

Two of Schumer’s predecessors as Majority Leader, Senators Robert Byrd (D-WV) and George Mitchell (D-ME), led hard-fought battles to enact a small donor-based, public financing system. They were blocked by Republican filibusters.

“The campaign finance system for Senators and Representatives is far more dangerous today than in the past,” Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer said. “Washington is being flooded with corrupting, influence-buying political money the likes of which we have never seen. The record-shattering $14 billion spent on the 2020 national elections was dominated by influence-seeking billionaires, millionaires, bundlers, lobbyists, corporate executives, Super PACs, dark money groups and special interest PACs,” Wertheimer said.

“Senate Democrats have a long history of fighting to enact a small donor-based, public financing system,” Wertheimer said. “We are at a moment in history when it is incumbent on Majority Leader Schumer and his Democratic colleagues to complete the mission started by Senate Majority Leaders Byrd and Mitchell. Otherwise, Washington political money corruption will only grow far worse.”

Senator Byrd – the Senator whose legacy Senator Manchin says he wishes to protect – led a nine-month battle in 1987-1988 for a small donor-based public financing system. That mantle was picked up in 1990 by Mitchell, the next Senate Majority Leader, who spent five years fighting for the legislation. Mitchell said in 1993 that voters “do not trust a system based on enormous campaign contributions. They demand reform and we owe it to them.”

Last week, Democracy 21 released a rundown of quotes from Senator Byrd in support of small donor-based public financing to show how Senators Manchin and Schumer could carry forward Byrd’s legacy by ensuring this key provision stays within S. 1.

Below is a rundown of similar quotes from Senate Majority Leader Mitchell, demonstrating how Senator Schumer could complete a mission started decades ago by his Majority Leader predecessors:

• January 21, 1993 (page 486): “S. 3, the campaign finance reform bill, is crucial to the reform of our electoral system. Last year’s election proved that Americans have not lost faith in their system of government. But they do not trust a system based on enormous campaign contributions. They demand reform and we owe it to them.”

• January 21, 1993 (page 486): “American elections cost too much and last too long. They are too long on symbols and too short on substance. Americans last year proved that they are interested in real debate on serious issues. We need an electoral system that is free of the insatiable funding demands, a system to discourage sound bites and to restore intelligent debate about public policy choices.”

• January 21, 1993 (page 631): “Mr. President, if there was one clear message from the American people during the 1992 election, it was that they are demanding change in the way our system of elections works. They are cynical about how Members of Congress are elected. They are concerned how we work to stay here, and how we spend our time once we are here. And the American people have grown tired of the perception that the general interest is being held hostage to the special interest.”

• January 21, 1993 (page 631): “Campaign finance reform must end the perception that the general interest is held hostage to the special interest. Real reform must put an end to the money chase so that we, as representatives of the people, can do the people’s business. True and meaningful campaign finance reform must not only curb the excessive influence of special interests and control the money chase. It must also create a system that is fair to all-incumbents and challengers, Democrats and Republicans.”

• June 17, 1993 (page 13245): “If enacted, it will help to restore the American people’s confidence in this institution and in our system of government. It will reduce the role of money in Federal election campaigns. It will enable government to better serve the national interest rather than the special interests.”

• September 30, 1994 (page 26964): “Public opinion poll after public opinion poll shows that an overwhelming majority of Americans believe, unfortunately, in my view, but in reality believe that the Members of this Senate are responsive to the money interests who finance their campaign. And this system perpetuates that belief. Every Member of this Senate knows of the never ending chase for money in which Senators engage on a regular basis, day in, day out, month in, month out, year in, year out. Every Senator knows that this system demeans the Members of the Senate, as it does those who contribute, as it does the American people and as it does democracy itself. To go around with your hand out to people day after day after day begging for money demeans the individual, demeans the process and corrodes the public trust and confidence in democracy itself.”

• September 30, 1994 (page 26965): “I think it is inevitable that there are going to be changes in this system, and I hope very much that those who remain and who have fought this battle so vigorously and with so much energy and effort over many years will continue the effort to create a situation where the American people can look at the Members of the Senate with pride and not with the embarrassment and the shame that so many feel now when they see this corrupting and corrosive system that exists, corrupting of the public trust in the Senate. … It is an irony, it is a huge and spectacular irony, that those who are opposed to changing this system in a way that will restore public trust are themselves seeking to become the beneficiaries of that public mistrust. The very people who want to keep this system which brings the institution of Congress into such disrepute are trying to be the beneficiaries of that disrepute – tear down the institution so that we can inherit the rubble.”

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