“If Californians want clean air and clean water, they should support clean money.”– Bill Magavern, Sierra Club California
Three quarters of all Americans believe that protecting the environment is so important that requirements and standards cannot be too high, and that continuing environmental improvements must be made regardless of cost.*
But under the current campaign finance system, anti-environmental special interests that make large campaign contributions see handsome returns in the form of anti-environmental policy decisions.
Since 1989, oil and gas, electric utilities, mining, chemical, and the auto manufacturing industries have poured $365 million into federal campaigns and party coffers, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). That's 30 times as much as was contributed by environmental groups over the same time period.
On issue after issue, when it comes to the environment, we have a dollar democracy. Meanwhile, the public's interest in a healthy, clean environment is ignored.
Clean Money = Clean Environment
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“People ask me, ‘What's the most important environmental law?’ There are two: One is campaign finance reform and the other is to restore the Fairness Doctrine, because those will fix our democracy." - Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - September 9, 2004 |
Leading environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club California, California League of Conservation Voters, Planning and Conservation League, Friends of the Earth, Bluewater Network and Greenpeace USA have endorsed Clean Money for California.
They recognize that Clean Money eliminates the influence of donors who want to weaken environmental laws, and it shifts power back to voters who overwhelmingly support strong environmental laws. Legislators in Maine who used Clean Money scored nearly twice as high on the League of Conservation Voters scorecard as those who didn't.
With Clean Money, elected officials will be free to make healthy public policy decisions that answer Californians’ calls for a clean and sustainable environment.
*Harris Poll, May 2005