Huffington Magazine Issue 72 | Page 47

PREVIOUS PAGE: DWIGHT NADIG/GETTY IMAGES (CAPITOL); TOM WILLIAMS/ROLL CALL/GETTY IMAGES (VAN HOLLEN, SHELTON); BILL CLARK/ROLL CALL/GETTY IMAGES (WERTHEIMER, PERLMUTTER, O’ROURKE, YARMUTH); ANTOINE ANTONIOL/BLOOMBERG VIA GETTY IMAGES (BEARD); CRACKING THE CODE COLUMBIA, M.D. — The 2014 election is over a year away, but even so Rep. John Sarbanes (DMd.) found himself standing in late July in the recessed living room of two supporters, Mary and David Marker, addressing a room full of potential donors to his reelection campaign. In this day and age of astronomical political spending, it’s never too soon for a lawmaker to gear up for the next campaign. And yet this was no ordinary fundraiser, and Sarbanes was making no ordinary pitch. “I want to thank you all for coming,” Sarbanes said. “I want to thank you for being interested. I want to thank you in advance for becoming a grassroots donor tonight. Remember, $5 is enough to state your commitment.” Five dollars might not seem like enough, not when donors can contribute up to $2,600 for each primary and general election, and politicians typically spend their time asking people to do just that. But this was a small-donor fundraising party — an event Sarbanes plans to repeat across his district as he attempts to fundamentally change the way political candidates raise money. In the past two years, Sarbanes, HUFFINGTON 10.27.13 a four-term congressman and the son of former five-term Sen. Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.), has emerged as a leader in a new vanguard of campaign finance reformers. These politicians and activists are pushing to empower small donors and to fight back against the rising tide of big money in politics and the increasing pressure con- “I JUST WOKE UP ONE DAY AND — I JUST CAN’T KEEP DOING THIS THE SAME OLD WAY.” gressional candidates face to raise money for their campaigns, peers and parties. “I just woke up one day and — I just can’t keep doing this the same old way,” Sarbanes said in an interview with The Huffington Post. “I can’t keep going to the same donors with the same story. There’s got to be something more innovative here.” Sarbanes has room to innovate. The seat he occupies, which stretches between Baltimore and Washington, is safely Democratic. So before the 2012 election, he stockpiled a half-million dollars in donations that could be unlocked