Citizen Funded Elections

Big donors continued to dominate California’s congressional campaigns even as we entered the fall campaign season when small donors traditionally became more engaged, according to analysis of campaign finance data for nine diverse* members of Congress by the non-partisan government watchdog organization California Common Cause.

Analysis of campaign finance data for nine diverse* members of Congress by the non-partisan government watchdog organization California Common Cause found that all of them raised the vast majority of funds from large donors and PACs from outside their districts.

Californians’ approval rating for their legislature has fallen to a historically low nine percent. Why then, don’t voters unelect them? Part of the reason may be that powerful interests who benefit from the current system have perfected techniques of directing huge sums of campaign funds toward candidates whose election will benefit them. As a result, candidates who aren’t favored by the donor class don’t raise much money and don’t win elections. When donors matter more than voters, low voter approval ratings don’t translate into electoral upheavals. This stark reality no doubt keeps many qualified candidates from even running in the first place.