Democracy Matters Executive Director Joan Mandle has been many things: a campaign manager for former Congressman (and now Common Cause President) Bob Edgar, an organizer, and a teacher. Now, she serves as the Chair of Public Campaign's Board of Directors. She talked with me about why she works for Clean Elections and how she views the work ahead. Read on for her interview.  Tell us a little more about your background – what brought you to the democracy/campaign finance reform/Clean Elections movement? My political engagement really began in high school in the early 1960s with the civil rights movement. As part of that commitment, I spent the summer of my sophomore year in college in the South Carolina as part of Freedom Summer. Since that formative experience, I have continually worked for social justice and equality – especially through peace and anti-war movements, the women’s movement, and the environmental movement. In my teaching, my published books and articles, and my directing Colgate University’s Women’s Studies Program, my professional work as an academic sociologist has focused on understanding social justice movements and the process of progressive social change.   During a 1997 sabbatical spent in the San Francisco Bay Area, I directed my activism to what I believed was the root cause of many of my political concerns – the private funding of election campaigns and the resulting ability of wealthy individuals to dominate and bias the political process in their self interest. I spent the next three years working with Common Cause to create a broad citizen movement that succeeded in passing public financing in the cities of Oakland and San Francisco. Students were an important part of that effort. Returning to Colgate in 2000, I worked with my son, Adonal Foyle, and several other Colgate faulty to found a national organization to bring young people more actively into the struggle for Clean Elections. Democracy Matters was born in 2001 with chapters on 10 college campuses. Its mission was to educate and mobilize students to work with Public Campaign and other allies in advocating for and winning full public financing of election campaigns. Did managing Bob Edgar’s campaigns give you particular insight on money in politics?As Campaign Manager of Congressman Bob Edgar’s (PA) successful electoral races in the middle 1980s, I learned first-hand about the dominant role of money in politics. I was horrified that candidates had no choice but to spend enormous amounts of time on fundraising. That in turn meant disproportionately talking and socializing with large donors, and often neglecting their own constituents. I saw the extent to which money influenced who ran and who won. The fact that Congressman Edgar was neither himself wealthy nor connected to wealth put him at a serious disadvantage in getting his ideas out and in running for office. Both Bob and I learned how this dependence on private funders undermined democracy by advantaging the wealthy and ignoring the concerns of the majority of Americans. What continues to inspire your work on Clean Elections?My work for Clean Elections continues to be inspired by the same ideas that brought me to social justice work as a teenager. I believe that each individual should have an equal opportunity to influence the laws and social policies that affect their lives. Justice, equality, and fairness demand that money should not control who has that opportunity and who lacks it. The promise of Clean Elections is a political system that is accountable to the people, where laws reflect the public will, where anyone can run for office, where ideas are the most important currency, and where everyone’s voice can be heard – in short a real democracy.Democracy Matters seems to have new chapters popping up everywhere; what our your goals for the next year?Democracy Matters chapters continue to spread to high schools and college campuses throughout the country. We expect to have 80 chapters in 22 states in the coming year. Our goal – as always -- is to continue to expand the number of young people who have the passion and the skills to deepen democracy by working effectively for Clean Elections.What are your goals for Public Campaign in your term as Board Chair?As Chair of Public Campaign, my first goal is to support the great work this organization has done in putting Clean Elections on the political agenda at the local, state, and national levels, and in helping grassroots coalitions of citizens to mobilize and successfully pass this legislation. My second goal is to help Public Campaign find ways to ensure that increasing numbers of citizens from diverse backgrounds understand that successfully addressing and resolving the issues they care about – the environment, inequality, civil rights, health care and many others – requires working for Clean Elections too. Only when we free our legislators from their dependence on private money will we be able to make progress on these other issues. We need to build and empower a broad, strong, and large social movement to press for real democracy.What’s the biggest challenge we have ahead of us? What’s our greatest asset?Our biggest challenge is to do what social movements have always done – find creative ways to fight money with people. We have the potential to mobilize millions of Americans who are sick of the corruption and inequality that private funding embodies. Large numbers of organized passionate citizens can trump big money, but our obstacle is overcoming the cynicism and political alienation of those individuals. Our greatest assets are first, the fact that everyone already knows that the present system is broken, and second, our ability to provide hope by demonstrating that ordinary citizens have passed Clean Elections in states and cities throughout the country, and that Clean Elections works!What’s one thing a person could go out and to do tomorrow to advance Clean Elections?One thing everyone can do tomorrow to advance Clean Elections is to get any groups they are part of – religious groups, civic groups, sports teams, their children’s classes, a group of neighbors, a group of friends or family – to understand and join the effort to pass Clean Elections. Show them how the issues they care about are connected to the promise of a political system where they really count, and urge them to join with you to fight for Clean Elections.