LETTER FROM
THE EDITOR
HUFFINGTON
10.27.13
The
Reformers
N THIS WEEK’S
issue, Paul Blumenthal
spotlights a bold group
of thinkers who have
made it their mission to transform
campaign finance as we know it.
Paul speaks to Rep. John Sarbanes (D-Md.), who has already
begun campaigning for the 2014
election through nontraditional
means. In an era where we speak
of candidates’ “war chests,” and
where donors can contribute up to
$2,600 to one candidate for each
primary election and again during the general election, Sarbanes’
pitch that “$5 is enough” is an
effort to reject our broken status
quo, where a candidates’ ability to
outspend his or her opponent far
outweighs the more substantive
aspects of a campaign.
ART STREIBER
I
“I just woke up one day and
said, ‘I just can’t keep doing this
the same old way,’” Sarbanes tells
Paul. “I can’t keep going to the
same donors with the same story.
There’s got to be something more
innovative here.”
As it is, members of Congress
devote huge chunks of their time
to courting potential donors —
through phone calls, meetings,
any way to hit their maximum
contribution mark. It’s a process
that has nothing to do with the
actual task of governing. Sen.
Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) describes it as “soul-crushing.” And
recent political science research
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