DEMOCRACY WORKS!

Our colleagues at the Public Campaign Action Fund are working to rally support nationwide for Arizona. They’re starting at $5 because that’s all a Clean Election candidate in Arizona or Maine can raise in private contributions from individual donors – unlike everywhere else in America where elections are turning into auctions.

What happens in Arizona is absolutely crucial to our work in West Virginia.

After seven years of painstaking organizing, the Citizens for Clean Elections – 27 organizations representing more than 900,000 citizens – is a powerhouse ready for action! We work with labor organizations, faith-based, community and good government groups, AARP, social workers, and other environmental organizations.

The Clean Elections bill, renamed the "Public Campaign Financing Act," (because legislators didn’t like the name "Clean Elections Act" since it implied that our current system is dirty … imagine that!), is before Select Committee F during the 2004 interim session of the legislature. The committee is charged with coming up with a funding mechanism and also deciding which offices should be funded; it’s comprised of members of the House and Senate Judiciary and Finance Committees (see below).