A Message from Voter-owned Iowa
It’s
hard to believe that summer is almost half over and before we know it
the fall will be upon us and the airwaves will be saturated with
campaign ads. During this election season, it will be more
important than ever for people to be aware of the huge, disastrous
amounts of money that special interests are doling out to buy our next
round of public servants.
As many
of you know, Voter-Owned Elections is a statewide campaign of Iowa CCI
and several Iowa coalition groups to eliminate Big Money's influence on
politics and return democracy back to the people. Voter-Owned
Elections is a voluntary system for state elections which provides
qualifying candidates – those who collect a set amount of signatures
and $5 donations from within their district – with a set amount of
money from a public source if they promise to refuse money from all
other sources.
Voter-Owned
Elections is known as “Clean Elections” in several states. The
Voter-Owned System is voluntary, nonpartisan, and offers candidates who
choose to run “voter-owned” a limited but competitive amount of money
that frees them from the money chase. In Arizona, where this law
was passed in 1998, Big Money interests are waging a battle to take it
away. They are using deceptive tactics to get a constitutional
amendment banning the law on the ballot this fall. To learn more
about Arizona’s effort, visit www.azkeepitclean.org.
This has
been a year of historic firsts on the national level with both John
Kerry and George W. Bush setting new fundraising records. By June
20th, Kerry had raised a total of $180 million and Bush $205
million. Both have more than doubled what Bush and Al Gore spent
in the run-up to the conventions four years ago. Here in Iowa,
Special Interests continue to flex their political muscle through their
PACs, with the Des Moines Register citing over $100,000 of PAC money
from gambling interests flowing to legislators before the 2004 session
began.
CCI
members have not sat by silently. We had letters to the editor
published all over the state. Feel free to write your own letter
on the importance of freeing our elected officials from the money
chase.
Letters
to the editor are only one way that CCI members have been working to
get the word out. Soon we will begin running ads on the Des
Moines Register website as well as in two Des Moines weekly papers,
Pointblank and Cityview. These ads will encourage people to visit
the voter-owned website and become involved with the movement to return
democracy to the hands of the people. Additionally, we are
working to make our website a better resource for members and others
and to provide a forum for feedback and interaction, entitled News and
Views.
On June
26th, over 30 CCI members participated in the Voter-Owned Elections
workshop at CCI’s annual convention. The workshop kicked off with
a fun and interactive exercise where two candidates ran for office and
members could see how the “Voter-Owned” candidate represents true
democracy! Members then broke into small groups and brainstormed the
selling points of Voter-Owned Elections and also possible roadblocks
for the campaign. Participants learned how voter-owned elections
could work in Iowa, and we hope to use this workshop as a template for
educating people all over Iowa about the voter-owned system.
Another
resource that will soon be available on our website is a letter we
drafted that can be sent to politicians who ask you for money.
This letter explains the merits of the voter-owned system, including
freeing candidates from the money chase. What better time to
build support for voter-owned elections among candidates than in the
thick of fundraising headaches? Even if you choose to donate to a
campaign, enclosing this letter is a great way of getting the word out!
The most
important resource our campaign has is you, our members. Since
legislators are the only ones who can revamp the system, it will take a
groundswell of grassroots support to get this done. We need your
help! Hold house or community meetings for friends and neighbors
to educate them on Voter-Owned elections. Our staff is happy to
help you put together a meeting in your area and to help you run
it. Please feel free to contact us at 515-282-0484, or shoot us
an email at iowacci@iowacci.org!
It is
imperative that we continue to talk to Iowans across the state, to
educate them on what is at stake, and to empower them with the idea
that they are the rightful owners of our democratic system, and they
have the right to reclaim it.
Sincerely,
Kerri, Carissa and Tyler
Voter-Owned Iowa
www.voterownediowa.org
Sign The Voter-owned Iowa Petition
Go here to sign the Voter-owned Iowa petition online.
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