News Clips

"We see strong support for these initiatives from independents, Democrats and Republicans," said Karen Hobert Flynn, president of Common Cause. "The question is whether incumbent officials will wake up to understand that people really do want democracy and that power belongs to the people."

Jay Young, executive director of Common Cause Illinois, said the explosion in self-funding "feels as though if you have enough money, you can capture whatever office you want just off the strength of that money alone. It shifts power away from people who should be holding the power -- ordinary voters."

The average challenger in a House race in the 2014 midterms had about $60,000 of “cash on hand,” as it’s called. The average Senate challenger had about $750,000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics in Washington. Wait until you see what candidates have in their coffers for this election. Common Cause's Stephen Spaulding talks with Kimberly Adams about where it's all going.

When corporate profits are at stake, campaign spending often balloons, said Kati Phillips of California Common Cause, which advocates campaign finance reform. "Health care measures are expensive," she said. "There's a lot of money to be made off of sick people."

"It's just distressing where you see these figures and I just feel like it makes people think that their democracy really isn't for them anymore," says Jay Young, who leads Common Cause Illinois — a nonpartisan government watchdog group — has been tracking the Pritzker-Rauner money fight. Young says Illinois seems to be setting up a perpetual cycle in future elections; that it's going to take another independently wealthy candidate to take on incumbents who are already rich. "I'm hoping that it doesn't end up that the only field that we see from now going forward is billionaires, but sadly that's the way we've been trending."

It is not uncommon for well-known U.S. senators to build large fundraising bases and transfer some of the money to help their party locally, according to Stephen Spaulding, chief of strategy at the election watchdog group Common Cause in Washington, D.C. "That's a big part of fundraising," he said. "It is to build up power and influence, both within their own elected bodies ... but also within their home states."