You can choose to believe the nurses union about the glories of public financing of elections and the noble intentions (right) behind Proposition 89.
SACRAMENTO - Proposition 89, slated for the November 7 ballot, claims that a "crisis of corruption" assails California and that public funding will make election campaigns cleaner, fairer, and more competitive. That claim can be tested by the experience in other states where taxpayer funding already exists, such as Arizona, which passed the Clean Elections Act in 1998.
A study of six years under Arizona's law reveals little evidence that the statute has helped minor or third-party candidates. The actual number of candidates has fallen and the data reveal no trend of greater political participation.
In Arizona, the Green Party no longer fields candidates and is no longer officially recognized. Recall that in 1999 Audie Bock, a Green Party candidate, gained election to the California Assembly under supposedly tainted conditions of privately funded campaigns.
In the election of 2002 in Arizona, 50 percent of legislative candidates and all but six major party candidates campaigned with public funds. The public funding had no significant impact on voter turnout or the level of campaign discourse. The publicly funded candidates elected in 2000 voted no differently than their privately funded colleagues in the same party.
In 1996, Maine passed the Maine Clean Election Act with the expectation that it would enhance electoral competition. Ten years after, the results imply the opposite.
"Maine's lesson for other states and for national politicians," write scholars Patrick Basham and Martin Zelder, "is that a government trying to foster more competitive elections through taxpayer financing will be disappointed with the results and taxpayers will be discomforted by the costs."
