The presidential election held on Tuesday has made clear that we must repair the presidential public financing system. Our organizations will join with other reform groups to work hard to accomplish this goal in the next Congress.
We need to restore and revitalize a system that served our country well for more than two decades until it became outdated because Congress failed to take the steps necessary to adapt the system to changing times.
On June 20, 2008, now President-elect Barack Obama stated about the presidential public financing system, "I am firmly committed to reforming the system as president, so that it's viable in today's campaign climate."
On October 31, 2008, a spokesman for the Obama campaign reiterated the Obama commitment, stating that Obama still supports presidential public financing but "cannot fix it by embracing it in its broken state. He can, however, make it a priority as president to fix it through the reform legislation he has co-sponsored - and he has made that commitment."
A USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken on October 28, 2008 found "wide support for public financing of presidential campaigns." The poll pointed out that more than 70 percent of the public supports public financing for presidential elections and only one in five said the system should be eliminated.
The legislation that Senator Obama co-sponsored in the current Congress has strong bipartisan sponsorship and leadership in the Senate and the House.
The bill is expected to be updated to take account of the campaign finance experiences of the 2008 presidential election and re-introduced at the opening of the new Congress in January 2009.
The premise of the new presidential public financing system is that small donors should play a much more prominent role in financing our presidential campaigns and bundlers and the larger contributions they gather should play a much less prominent one.
The legislation encourages this transformation by matching each $1 contribution with $4 in public funds, for contributions up to $200 per donor.
This new strong incentive for small contributions has the added benefit of encouraging citizens to get involved and participate in presidential elections through the vehicle of making small contributions.
President-elect Obama showed in the 2008 presidential campaign the enormous potential that the Internet has for raising small contributions. But he was the exception. Other candidates have not yet been able to tap this potential and still rely far too much on bundlers and the larger contributions they raise.
The multiple matching funds offered by the proposed new presidential public financing system will provide very powerful incentives for donors to give and for candidates to focus on raising small contributions on the Internet.
Small donations raised on the Internet and magnified by public matching funds can and should be the wave of the future for presidential campaigns and ultimately for all of our elections.
We believe this is a unique moment in the history of the financing of American elections and that this opportunity must be seized.
We look forward to working with President-elect Obama and his Administration and with Congressional leaders to enact legislation in the next Congress to fix the presidential public financing system.
The Committee for Economic Development is a non-profit, non-partisan organization of more than 200 business leaders and university presidents that works to promote economic growth and government reform. Democracy 21 is a non-profit, non-partisan organization that works to strengthen our democracy by promoting campaign finance, lobbying, ethics and other government integrity reform issues.
