Is Rhode Island ready for Clean Elections? (continued)

THE RISING PROFILE of the Clean Elections in Rhode Island owes much to Te-Ping Chen and some of her classmates at Brown University. Chen, who developed an interest in activism as a high school student in Oakland, became increasingly concerned about campaign finance reform while interning with Democracy Matters, a national organization that involves students in examining the role of private money in American politics. After arriving in Providence, she found Common Cause’s Web site while doing research, called Phil West, and involved some of her classmates in the effort.

The Clean Elections concept appeals to Chen and her friends for several reasons, including the prospect of making it easier for more people to run for office.

By decreasing the focus on campaign finance, "It will make the government more responsive to its citizens and more composed of its citizens," says Madeleine Lipshie-Williams, a 19-year-old sophomore from the Bronx. Although the influence of money in politics can seem overwhelming and hard to grasp, Clean Elections makes it tangible by bringing it down to local races, says Caleb Canders, a 19-year-old sophomore from Maine. Chen notes how various advocacy groups — environmental organizations, for example — can draw links between special-interest contributions and how their causes are treated in corridors of power. Clean Elections, she says, "empowers people who will put $5 behind you, not a $200 check."

Thanks to a 1992 reform, Rhode Island has partial public funding of elections. Candidates who agree to spending-limits — roughly $1.5 million for gubernatorial candidates and $375,000 for the other general officers — are eligible to receive some matching funds from the state. Phil West, however, says the system hasn’t worked well since 1998, particularly since five of the six gubernatorial candidates in the 2002 Democratic and Republican primaries didn’t limit their campaign spending. The exception was former representative Antonio Pires, whose campaign was handicapped by his lack of personal wealth. (Rhode Island’s partial public funding applies only to general election campaigns.)

In Rhode Island, shakedown scandals involving former governor Edward DiPrete and former Providence mayor Vincent A. "Buddy" Cianci Jr. point to how the campaign finance process can be flagrantly abused. Common Cause’s West, though, cites a more prosaic part of the local political landscape as a sign of the need for change: the legislative fundraisers that take place most frequently from mid-March through mid-June — the height of the legislative season. "Anyone who wants to get anything done feels the need go to these fundraisers," he says. "It’s not accidental that that’s the time when critical decisions are being made."

Estimates place the general cost of a Senate race at $45,000 and a House race at $10,000.

Senate President Joseph A. Montalbano rejects suggestions that campaign donations have an undue influence on legislators. "We certainly don’t limit access based on campaign contributions," Montalbano says, noting how groups that don’t give money to campaigns, such as One Rhode Island, an advocacy group for low-income residents, nonetheless have the ear of legislative leaders. The North Providence Democrat says he imposed "zero tolerance" on himself last year, paying for his own meal if he meets with lobbyists, for example, to reduce the perception of possible influence. And while legislative leaders receive some $1000 donations, the most that an individual can give to a legislative candidate, rank-and-file lawmakers typically receive far smaller amounts from campaign contributors — a situation that doesn’t influence legislators’ thinking, he says.

Although the current approach might not be perfect, it may also be better than some of the alternatives, says Montalbano, who questions how much Clean Elections would cost taxpayers. "The bottom line is, can I run a campaign without political donations?" he asks. "No, because I’m not personally wealthy . . . I think it’s the nature of a part-time legislature that you need to be able to [raise private contributions]."

Like Montalbano, Larry Berman, a spokesman for House Speaker William P. Murphy, predicted the Clean Elections proposal will receive a fair hearing, although he said Murphy was too unfamiliar with the legislation introduced last week to comment.

Part of the challenge in promoting Clean Elections is how legislative incumbents, particularly the dominant Democrats on Smith Hill, may well perceive it as a threat. "When you pass reform, you always have to ask, who’s going to benefit, who’s going to lose out?" says Ray LaRaja, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. "If one party thinks the other party is going to get a benefit from that reform, they’re not going to want to go along with it."

In moving forward, Chen and her classmates plan to forge a statewide coalition with other student groups, while Common Cause will seek to replicate the broad alliance of organizations that backed separation of powers. "We’re in it for the long haul," says West. "The beauty of taking private money out of the system is that the people are going to be accountable to the voters. We think there’s a greater truth in that that over time the public will recognize."

One of the wild cards is the relative amount of support that Governor Donald L. Carcieri might lend to Clean Elections. Asked about the concept during Chafee’s fundraiser at the Hotel Providence, the governor was unfamiliar with it. Asked about the broader idea of publicly financed elections, Carcieri says, "I think that’s a good idea, because it will encourage people to run that can’t afford to run a whole campaign or raise the money on their own, particularly first-timers.

"But on the other hand, it’s very difficult if you haven’t run before as a first-timer, because it is a money game when you get into a campaign. If you can take more money out of it, I think that’s a good thing, because, frankly, no one that runs for political office that I know likes to have to raise money. It’s the worst part of it — calling people and asking them to give to the campaign. I think you’d probably find broad support if you could figure a way to take the money out, although that’s not that simple, because you have to run a campaign."

Although it won’t be a surprise if a majority of legislators oppose Clean Elections in the short term, even critics are bound to have some glints of familiarity with the downside of gathering campaign contributions.

Edith Ajello, the House sponsor of the measure, recently held a joint fundraiser with Rhoda Perry, the Senate sponsor, to help pay off their respective campaign debts. "A number of us think it would be better for the public if we didn’t have campaign debt or campaign fundraising and could concentrate on the work at hand," Ajello says. And while the rep, a resident of Providence’s Benefit Street, lives in an East Side district with what a campaign treasurer might call a target-rich environment, fundraising remains personally distasteful to her. "I’m fortunate in that I represent one of the most affluent districts in the state, and my supporters have been very generous with their campaign donations," she says. "The difficulty for me is making myself do it."

Ian Donnis can be reached at idonnis[a]phx.com.