If you want Clean Elections and an end to rule by special interest money, legislative leaders must hear from you.

EVEN IF you have called or written before - DO IT AGAIN!

Leave a message for your legislators and the House Speaker: "Enact HB 1551 and HB 1186 now!"

HB 1551, sponsored by Rep. Joe McDermott, would simply grant permission to local cities and other jurisdictions to have their own public financing programs, if they want.

It is not a mandate from the state - only permission.
It does not cost the state any money.
Citizens of local juridictions should have the ability to decide on their own, what they want.

HB 1186, sponsored by Rep. Shay Schual-Berke at the request of the Governor, would establish a 6-year pilot program of public financing for campaigns for the state Supreme Court and Court of Appeals. It is a well-crafted proposal, and at $4.4 million for the biennium, it would cost less than 50 cents per resident per year.

OUR COURTS should not be for sale to the highest bidder! Judges should not be raising campaign cash from special interests, in order to be elected to the top judicial authority of our state!

AND AT THE LOCAL LEVEL, candidates for city or county council deserve the option to run on public financing - if the city or county so chooses.

PUBLIC FINANCING OF CAMPAIGNS makes sense - so that issues and voters, not money, determines the outcome in our elections. Campaigns should be owned and funded by citizens, not by special interests. When private money pays the piper, it wants something in return. When the funding is public, candidates can run for office on their ideas - they owe their political soul only to the voters.