TOM WILLIAMS/CQ ROLL CALL/GETTY IMAGES
CRACKING
THE CODE
while previously set restrictions are
falling left and right, ordinary citizens are rallying around the issue
of money in politics in a way not
seen in many years. What had once
been a cause limited to a niche
group of good-government types in
Washington has grown into a broad
coalition. The Sierra Club, the
NAACP, Greenpeace and the Communications Workers of America
— four of the largest membership
groups in the country — have begun to invest time and resources in
supporting campaign finance reform for the first time. And a new
breed of reformers are pushing new
arguments to highlight the issue
and bring conservatives and disaffected voters into the fold.
More than anything else, however, reformers believe they have
finally cracked the code for changing the way politicians raise money. The key, they say, is to encourage candidates’ political activity
and increase the voice of small
donors in the fundraising system.
“The notion that we’re simply
going to regulate the big money
out by establishing limits has
faded,” said Nick Nyhart, president and CEO of Public Campaign, one of the groups rallying
around this new effort. “People
HUFFINGTON
10.27.13
are saying, well, you might need
those regulations, but that alone
is not going to do what you need
to get people in. So there has
been a big shift in that.”
THE INCREASING PRESSURE on
lawmakers to raise campaign cash
is not simply a result of the rise of
special interests in Washington.
The Republican takeover of both
the House and Senate in 1994
sparked a reordering of fundraising priorities, as power on Capitol Hill finally came up for grabs
Freshman
congressman
Beto
O’Rourke
(D-Tx.) is a
supporter of
the Sarbanes
bill for
campaign
finance
reform.