Clean Elections Rhode Island
Encyclopedia
Clean Elections Rhode Island is a non-profit group dedicated to passing clean elections
Clean elections
"Clean Elections" is a term used to describe a particular system of government financing of political campaigns, in which the government provides a grant to candidates who agree to limit their and private fundraising efforts and limit their campaign-spending.- In the United States :Clean Election...

 in the state of Rhode Island.

Clean Elections

Clean elections is a term used to describe a system of taxpayer financing of political campaigns. Candidates that qualify by collecting a prescribed number of signatures and $5 contributions from registered voters in their district can agree to not raise or spend any private money during the primary and general elections. Instead, a set amount of funding for the candidate's campaign is provided from the state budget. If the candidate is outspent by an opponent running a privately funded campaign, the state will provide more funding to the "clean" candidate in order to match the amount spent by the opponent, up to some multiple of the original funding.

Clean elections have been implemented in Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...

 and Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...

 on a statewide level, as well as in Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...

 on the municipal level, and elsewhere. Proponents of clean elections, including those involved in Clean Elections Rhode Island, believe that Clean Elections result in increased voter turnout, political transparency, and diversity of candidates, including fuller representation of women and minorities.

Rhode Island Clean Elections Act

The current goal of Clean Elections Rhode Island is to pass the Rhode Island Clean Elections Act (RICEA), which would implement clean elections in Rhode Island, through the Rhode Island state legislature. Introduced in spring of 2004, it has been brought before the House Finance and Senate Judiciary committees every year since, but has not yet been brought to a vote. The legislative sponsors of RICEA are Senator Rhoda Perry
Rhoda Perry
Rhoda Perry is a Democratic member of the Rhode Island Senate, representing the 3rd District . Perry is the chairwoman of Senate Committee on Health & Human Services and a member, Senate Committee on Judiciary.-Legislation:...

 (D-District 3, Providence) and Representative Edith Ajello (Democrat- District 3, Providence).

Steering Committee

A steering committee for the Clean Elections Rhode Island campaign was formed in the fall of 2005. Its current members include:
  • Common Cause
    Common Cause
    Common Cause is a self-described nonpartisan, nonprofit lobby and advocacy organization. It was founded in 1970 by John W. Gardner, a Republican former cabinet secretary under Lyndon Johnson, as a "citizens' lobby" with a mission focused on making U.S. political institutions more open and...

     Rhode Island
  • Rhode Island Green Party
  • The League of Women Voters
    League of Women Voters
    The League of Women Voters is an American political organization founded in 1920 by Carrie Chapman Catt during the last meeting of the National American Woman Suffrage Association approximately six months before the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution gave women the right to vote...

     of Rhode Island
  • Operation Clean Government
    Operation Clean Government
    Operation Clean Government is a nonpartisan, nonprofit citizens' lobby and advocacy organization. The organization was founded in 1993 by Bruce R...

  • Rhode Island Public Interest Research Group
    Public Interest Research Groups
    The US Public Interest Research Group is a political lobby non-profit organization in the United States and Canada, composed of self-governing affiliates at the state and province level. Its fundraising arm is the Fund for Public Interest Research...

  • American Association of University Women
  • Brown University
    Brown University
    Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...

     chapter of Democracy Matters
    Democracy Matters
    Democracy Matters is a non-profit, non-partisan grassroots student political organization that is dedicated to deepening democracy. Democracy Matters advocates for public financing of election campaigns and other pro-democracy reforms in order to get big private and corporate money out of elections...

  • Providence College
    Providence College
    Providence College is a private, coeducational, Catholic university located about two miles west of downtown Providence, Rhode Island, United States, the state's capital city. With a 2010–2011 enrollment of 3,850 undergraduate students and 735 graduate students, the College specializes in academic...

     chapter of Democracy Matters
    Democracy Matters
    Democracy Matters is a non-profit, non-partisan grassroots student political organization that is dedicated to deepening democracy. Democracy Matters advocates for public financing of election campaigns and other pro-democracy reforms in order to get big private and corporate money out of elections...


External links

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