Campaign Contributions: The Currency of our Democracy

Campaign money -- not votes -- is now the currency of our democracy, determining who runs for office, who wins, and who has the ear of elected officials. The candidate who raises the most campaign cash, more often than not, goes on to win the election.

Where does that money come from? The great amounts of cash come from neighborhoods where wealthy, non-Hispanic white populations dominate. Neighborhoods where African Americans and Latinos live are particularly underrepresented in terms of campaign dollars.

The Color of Money Project is devoted to illustrating this unfortunate fact--how a tiny elite group of privileged donors is more equal than others, and how there are direct consequences for people’s lives, from the wages they earn and the taxes they pay, to the quality of the schools their children attend and the air they breathe. We will demonstrate how Clean Money/Clean Elections campaign finance reform restores the American ideal of one person, one vote, and helps knock down barriers to participation in our
democracy.

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2004 Presidential Race
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Public Campaign

2004 Presidential Race

October 12, 2004…During the primary season, only 10% of the large individual contributions (more than $200) flowing to the Bush and Kerry campaigns, as well as most of the other major Democratic candidates for the presidency, came from neighborhoods where people of color are the majority...

Click here to view full press release, and here to view the report, Color of Money: The 2004 Presidential Race.

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Look Up A Top Contributing Metro Area

Click here to look up a map of where Democratic candidate John Kerry and President George W. Bush are raising their campaign cash in the nation's top contributing metropolitan areas.

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Fannie Lou Hamer

Real campaign finance reform would meet the Fannie Lou Hamer standard, which provides a way to see immediately what constitutes real reform. It is a standard for the kind of reform that is consistent with our highest aspirations for democracy -- reform based on the sacred principle of POLITICAL EQUALITY:

Equal opportunity for everyone to participate in the political process regardless of race, gender or economic status and access to wealth.

One person, one vote rather than one dollar, one vote.

Government of, by and for the people means all the people, not just those who can raise, or who can afford to give big-money campaign contributions.

The Clean Money Solution

There is an alternative to the current campaign finance system of privately funded elections that helps restore fairness and equality to the election process.

Under the Clean Money, Clean Elections approach, already law in five states--Arizona, Maine, North Carolina, New Mexico, and Vermont--candidates who agree to abide by strict spending limits and to raise no private money qualify for a grant of public funds for their campaigns.

Click here to read more about
Clean Elections/Clean Money reform.

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