Minutes of the meeting held on October 9, 2007 at North Asheville Library.Attending: John, Tom, Barbara, Leah, Susan
Minutes taken by Susan.
We discussed the upcoming events in
Financial: We spent $10 for rent of the room at North Asheville Library and we have $30 left in our treasury.
Tom spoke on “How to Accomplish Reform – How to get there” tonight. Tom has been a member of Common Cause since 1982. He has worked on public funding for state wide elections from the mid 1990’s. They had many years where they could not get that out of committee, so other groups suggested forming a coalition, called the NC Voters for Clean Elections. Although a number of "good Government" organizations had been working on reform issues for years, they had made scant progress until, in 1999 they agreed to closely collaborate and press for one issue, public funding for statewide elections (later expanded to include municipal elections and lobby reform). A planning committee from these organizations was put in place, resulting in the formation of the North Carolina Voters for Clean Elections coalition. It originally included Common Cause, Democracy South, The NC Center for Voter Education and the League of Women Voters of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. Later it was joined by PIRG and the State League of Women Voters. Altogher, 35 organizations now belong to the coalition, lending their names to the cause, while the original members, whose basic mission is campaign reform, does the "heavy lifting."
Tom said he got to see how the process worked and how cumulative effect might work. The reason for state funded elections is to get special interest money out of elections. People don’t feel that they have much effect on the federal government, but we do have an effect on state government, and Tom said that after state governments fall in line, then federal governments will also. Organizations have to raise money in order to get money out of politics, and also figure out which organizations have the best strategies. Tom also said that you need to sacrifice your ego and it needs to be a collaborative effort. He also said that you need patience, and that no reform happens overnight. He has been working on this issue since 1980’s.
Tom said that it is important to cultivate your legislators over time, and that all of Buncombe and Madison County Democrats (in office) are now supporters. Three Council of State positions are now in a pilot program: Insurance Commissioner, Department of Public Instruction Superintendent, and State Auditor. (The five other Council of State positions are Agriculture, Secretary of State, and Attorney General, Lieutenant Governor and Commissioner of Labor.) Someone running for one of these offices needs to get a lot of small contributions to be eligible for public funding. There are also rules about getting extra funding if there are media ads that are run by an opponent that are false or damaging.
Right now, the state wide judges are publicly funded, with some money coming from the general fund. If all statewide offices, governor, council of state, appellate judiciary and legislature were publicly funded, it would cost less than $4 per year per NC citizen. The US Supreme Court has ruled that a person can contribute as much as they want to their own campaigns. Tom said the plans for 2009 include a move into funding state legislators’ campaigns, and also the campaign for NC Governor.
Next meeting of the Progressive Democrats of Buncombe County is January 8, 2008.
Photo is of me standing with a Honk to Impeach sign on I-240 last August.
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