Over time the nation has seen the elimination of numerous barriers to voting rights---from property, race, gender, and age qualifications to exclusionary white primaries, poll taxes, high candidate filing fees, and vote dilution schemes.

Today we must face up to the newest voting-rights barrier: the "wealth primary." The wealth primary is that exclusionary process, leading up to every primary and general election, in which those with money or access to money, by means of their campaign contributions, choose the candidates who almost invariably go on to govern. Those who do not raise enough money---that is, who lose the "wealth primary"-----almost always do not win office.

The rest of us, the vast majority of American people, are shut out of this process. Because we have, ultimately, little say in the outcome of elections, our right to vote is debased and undermined.

This situation can be likened to the old Texas practice of "white primaries." There a "pre-primary candidate was nominated by an all- white political organization, the Jaybird Democratic Association, a large private political club. For years, those who won the "Jaybird primary" would go on to invariably win the Democratic primary and the general election.

In a decision of enormous importance the U.S. Supreme court ruled in the Terry v. Adams case, in 1953 that the Jaybird's exclusionary process had become "part of the machinery for choosing officials" and therefor required constitutional scrutiny. The Court then struck down the Jaybird primary, finding that it unconstitutionally excluded African-American voters on the basis of their race from "an integral part" of "the electoral process that determines who shall rule and govern."

Like that white primary, the wealth primary today is "part of the machinery" for getting elected to office. It is, like its predecessor, both exclusionary and decisive. Candidates and voters who lack wealth and access to wealth are effectively excluded from the process. And the candidate who, by raising the most money, wins the wealth primary almost invariably wins the election.

That's the American way, some might say. If you have the money or can raise the money, you can spend it on your election campaign. The Supreme Court said as much in its highly controversial 1976 decision in Buckley v. Valeo, 424 U.S. 1, when it struck down, on First Amendment grounds, mandatory congressional limits on overall congressional campaign expenditures on candidates' expenditure of their personal wealth, and on "independent" expenditures.

But the constitutional question posed by the wealth primary is not about the First Amendment rights of the well-financed candidates and wealthy contributors. It is about the Equal Protection rights of all candidates and voters who are left behind in the fundraising process because of their lack of money and access to money.

Over thirty years ago, in the midst of the civil rights movement, the Supreme Court stated that wealth cannot serve as a barrier to the right to vote. (Harper v. Virginia State Board of Ed.1966). The Court struck down a $1.50 poll tax in Virginia saying "a State violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment whenever it makes the affluence of the voter or payment of any fee an electoral standard. Voter qualifications have no relation to wealth."

Six years later in (Bullock v. Carter the Court again faced the issue of wealth as a barrier in the electoral process and again stated that such a barrier cannot stand. This time, the question concerned a system of high filing fees that the state if Texas required candidates to pay, in order to appear on the primary ballot. The fees ranged from $150 to $8,900.

The Court invalidated the system on Equal Protection grounds. It found that, with the high filing fees, "potential office seeker lacking both personal wealth and affluence backers are in every practical sense precluded from seeking the nomination of their chosen party, no matter how qualified they may be and no matter how enthusiastic their popular support. The exclusionary character" of the system also violated the constitutional rights of non-affluent voter. We would ignore reality," the Court stated, " were we not to find that this system falls with unequal weight on voters, as well as candidates, according to their economic status."
 

In looking back at our last Municipal city council elections, all the incumbents were re-elected in the primary. The closest margin was the incumbent in District 2, Byron Wear getting 54% of the vote. That in a race in which he spent 8 times the amount of his closest rival. Our last Mayoral race was a walk in , with no serious opposition.

The recent demise in the U.S. Congress of even the most incremental "reform" effort on campaign finance demonstrates that voters cannot look to their legislators for protection of their rights in this area. But, some might ask, if the influence of private money in elections cannot be tolerated, then how are candidates to run? Where does the money come from?

Distribute the Influence.

In Bullock v. Carter, the State of Texas argued, among other things, that its system of high candidate filing fees was necessary in order to finance "the cost of conducting the primary elections." The State argued that if the fees were struck down, "the voters, as taxpayers, will ultimately be burdened with the expense of the primaries."

But Chief Justice Warren Burger, writing for the Court, stated that the primary is part of the democratic process and that "it seems appropriate that a primary system designed to give the voters some influence at the nominating stage should spread the cost among all the voters in an attempt to distribute the influence without regard to wealth." Given the many functions that government pays for, Burger wrote, "it is difficult to single out any of a higher order than the conduct of elections at all levels to bring forth those persons desired by their fellow citizens to govern."

We can take guidance from the Court's ruling in Bullock. If the primary is part of the democratic process, so too is the electoral campaign, including all the fundraising, that leads up to the primary and the general election. We ought, then, to have democratically-financed elections, elections financed not by a wealthy elite but by all the people.

Such a system as the one we are proposing, in which candidates received equal amounts of public financing for their campaigns, would end the wealth primary and open up the candidate selection process to all voters.

San Diego Clean Elections Act

We, at the Alliance, asked the question: What might a campaign finance system look like that did not require candidates to raise, or have, large sums of private money in order to run for and win public office?

Our answer to that question is the San Diego Clean Elections Act. The Clean Elections Act offers candidates who can demonstrate a threshold level of public support a set amount of public funding (Clean Money) for both primary and general election campaigns. Public support is demonstrated by raising a large number of $5 qualifying contributions from registered voters within a candidate's election district. Candidates receiving Clean Money funding must agree not to raise or spend any private or personal money, other than qualifying contributions and a very modest amount of seed money prior to the beginning of the primary election period.

Once the campaign period begins, their spending is limited to the amount of Clean Money they receive. If Participating Candidates are outspent by nonparticipating opponents they may receive additional, matching funds with which to respond. Revenue for the Clean Money Fund will come from some combination of these and other sources: the qualifying contributions collected by participating candidates, a highly publicized program of voluntary contributions, and direct government appropriations to make up the balance of what is needed.

The Clean Money program could be "revenue neutral" (requiring no tax increase) if the cost is offset by new revenues or elimination of unnecessary tax exemptions and other subsidies previously granted to major campaign contributors. The cost of implementing the San Diego Clean Elections Act is estimated to be about $2.5 million annually, which works out to approximately $5 per year per registered voter..