[536] in peace2
Clean Elections
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Aimee L Smith)
Wed Feb 14 15:35:54 2001
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To: greens-announce@MIT.EDU, peace-list@MIT.EDU
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Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 15:35:16 -0500
From: Aimee L Smith <alsmith@MIT.EDU>
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Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2001 08:04:03 -0500
From: Patrick Keaney <pkeaney@netway.com>
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Dear friends and family,
Please take a minute today to contact your state representative and urge
him/her to "sign the pledge in support of Clean Elections." The number
for the State House switchboard is (617) 722-2000.
Remind him/her that 67% of the state's voters approved this law as a
ballot initiative in 1998. The voters also approved indexed pay raises
for legislators that same year, and you don't hear them carping about
that, now do you?
To find out the names of your legislators, see:
http://www.state.ma.us/legis/citytown.htm
As for the objections offered by anonymous opponents of the law in the
Globe story (attached below): funding for Clean Elections costs around
$10 million a year. We spend close to $4 BILLION on K-12 education. We
spend $10 million on the Office of Travel and Tourism, convincing people
from around the world that the Cape is a nice place. There is room in
our state's budget for all these items. Similar laws are in effect in
Maine and Arizona, and none of the "fringe candidates," or gadflies, or
neo-Nazis, that the politicians portray in their nightmare scenarios
have run.
Please make this phone call, as soon as you can. Thanks.
Pat Keaney
Legislators seek pledge to preserve
election law
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff, 2/13/2001
Throwing down a gauntlet over the state's
controversial Clean Elections Law, backers of the
public-financing initiative will challenge their
legislative
colleagues today to pledge support for it.
Four House members will unveil a pledge card and ask
fellow lawmakers for public vows to protect the law,
which passed by ballot initiative in 1998. The challenge
preempts planned efforts by House leaders to gut the law
on the eve of its implementation.
''The public has a right to know which legislators are
standing with them,'' said Representative Jarrett T.
Barrios (D-Cambridge). ''The pledge simply says that we
will stand by the voters and oppose any effort to gut the
law.''
The Clean Elections Law allows candidates running for
state office to opt into a state-subsidized campaign
finance plan.
Supporters say many legislators, despite voters'
overwhelming approval of the measure, are planning an
assault on the law, fearful that it will draw a flood of
challengers in elections.
The four representatives - Barrios and fellow Democrats
Stephen Kulick of Worthington, Frank M. Hynes of
Marshfield, and Michael E. Festa of Melrose - will ask
House and Senate members today whether they will sign
a public pledge on Thursday vowing support for the
Clean Elections Law.
Some incumbents' wariness toward the possibility of
new political opponents has manifest itself in attempts to
alter the law significantly, Festa said.
''We need a counter force to that,'' the representative
said. ''We need another message coming out of this
building.''
The pledge would commit lawmakers to the basic tenets
of the Clean Elections Law, while leaving room for
technical changes to be made.
''Quite simply, the people have spoken explicitly, and,
like other referenda, have bound us to try and make this
law work,'' states the letter the four lawmakers are
sending their colleagues.
Entrenched opposition to Clean Elections makes it
unlikely that the oversized pledge card will elicit
commitments from a majority of the 160 House members
or 40 Senators. But the magic numbers may be 54 and 14
- enough to protect the veto that Governor Paul Cellucci's
administration has promised to issue against any attempt
to gut Clean Elections.
Festa said the law's supporters consider several aspects
of Clean Elections to be nonnegotiable. The system must
apply to all statewide and legislative offices, has to be
funded fully, and must be in place in time for next year's
elections.
Backers also say they will fight any effort to shorten the
defined preelection period, a proposed change they say
would give candidates additional months of
no-holds-barred fund-raising before the rules kick in.
David Donnelly, director of Massachusetts Voters for
Clean Elections, said he was glad that the pledge drive is
being spearheaded by four lawmakers who haven't
previously been at the forefront of the discussions.
''We welcome and applaud this new leadership,''
Donnelly said. ''We hope and expect it will lead toward
the appropriate resolution of implementing the Clean
Elections Law.''
Opponents in the Legislature say the measure will drain
money from more worthy programs in the state budget,
like education and housing. They say the measure may
give taxpayer funds to gadflies and other extremist
candidates.
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