Tax-Financed Campaigns

Connecticut’s taxpayers subsidized political candidates to the tune of $9.3 million in 2008,1 under the idea put forth by “clean elections” proponents that doing so would “remove ...

Critics of taxpayer-funded political campaigns frequently justify their opposition in part on the idea that such programs increase government spending, add to the total tax burden on citizens, ...

In 2007, the state of New Jersey conducted its second experiment with taxpayer-funded political campaigns, often called “clean elections” by advocates of such programs

Proponents of taxpayer-funded political campaigns, often called “clean elections” by their proponents, cite the ability of an increased number of diverse, non-traditional candidates able to run for and ...

On March 28, 2008, the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (NJ ELEC) released the 2007 Fair and Clean Elections Report, nearly 100 pages in ...

One of the main arguments in favor of taxpayer-funded political campaigns, sometimes called “clean elections,” is that they will lead to more diverse legislatures, and that a larger ...

We investigate a simple question: what does money contributed to legislators buy? Evidence that money buys votes (and theoretical explanations for why we should expect ...

Maine and Arizona are currently the only two states that have statewide programs of taxpayer-funded political campaigns for state legislative campaigns, sometimes called “clean election” programs. Seeking to replace ...

After being in operation for four election years (2000 – 2006), the Maine Clean Election Act (MCEA) appears to be settling itself into the political ...

Yesterday in the L.A. Times, columnist George Skelton post-mortemed Prop. 89, the public financing initiative that California voters overwhelmingly rejected last Tuesday.  His conclusion: ...