W-W-What's That You Say?
Article in Wyoming and Wisconsin cover the activities of Fair Elections Action Week and local efforts to raise awareness about the policy. With last week's Washington editorial, we've got a "W" state hat trick!Dan Neal of the Equality State Policy Center is in the Casper Star-Tribune with an editorial on Fair Elections Action Week, and the local issues that feed concern over the role of money in politics:Where there is money there is also often scandal. We saw this in Wyoming recently when newspapers reported that since winning re-election in 2002, Republican Sen. Mike Enzi had used his campaign funds to pay his daughter-in-law more than $150,000 for fundraising services. He also used funds from his leadership PAC, Making Business Excel, to pay her company an additional $170,000. While it's not illegal for senators to use campaign funds to pay family members, such payments figured in the scandals surrounding former Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif.Because of these sorts of revelations, there is a cry for change. This week, thousands of activists throughout the nation are rallying to voice their support for Fair Elections legislation that would bring full public financing of election to the U.S. Senate. And the Milwaukee ABC affiliate reports on the "Money in Politics and the Clean and Fair Elections Movement" discussion hosted by a broad coalition of student groups and held at UW-Milwaukee last week, featuring former gubernatorial candidated Ed Garvey and Jack Lohman:"Money has taken over the system to the point where it is so corrupt it’s hard for me to be here in a sense because if I tell you the truth about how bad the system is I'm afraid some of you will say, 'To hell with it; I'm not even getting involved,'" Garvey said.The activist went on to explain that lobbyists, spending millions of dollars each year to frame the issues, demand so much of legislators' time that their constituents are often unable to communicate what they feel is in the best interest of the public. Garvey also expressed his desire for normal, everyday people to be able to run for office.