Betty Ahrens grew up around politics, so it’s no surprise that she’s fits right in as Public Campaign’s new Vice President of Outreach and Operations. A Midwesterner, Betty grew up in Chicago and attended the University of Iowa for both undergraduate and law school. It was after law school that she dove head first into the political world as an organizer for the Iowa Citizen Action Network (ICAN).

At ICAN, Betty worked on any number of issue campaigns, but it wasn’t until the crushing defeat of the health care campaign in 1994 that she realized that our political system was irrevocably broken – as big special interests bombarded Congress with lobbyists and campaign cash, and successfully stifled the much needed reform. It occurred to her then that maybe the issue wasn’t the organizers, but those elected and the electoral process itself. “I realized that the only way to fix this is campaign finance reform. This was right around the time when they were working to pass Clean Elections in Maine, and I became the cheerleader for campaign finance reform. So when this opportunity came up to do regional organizing at the Midwest States Center, I jumped on it. I loved that work, I believed in it so much.”

Though she loved her work, Betty continued to see the breakdown of our political system as issue fights were continually lost, not because of their merits, but due to the influx of campaign cash from big-money interests. This was never so clear than after the 2008 elections. “It seemed everything was aligned to pass – climate legislation, financial reform, etc. - but much of the legislation never was passed or was severely watered down. It raises the question – is our current political and campaign system structured in a way that makes it impossible to tackle the problems of the day…I don’t see any way that really empowers people unless we have a system of public financing of campaigns.”

Betty ultimately went back to ICAN, moving up the ranks and most recently serving as the organization’s executive director. At ICAN, Betty had the opportunity to work on trying to advance Fair Elections-style reform in Iowa and worked with Public Campaign directly over the past three years. Though she didn’t envision herself leaving the Midwest, when the opportunity to work for Public Campaign arose, she jumped at the chance. Betty found Public Campaign’s work in exposing the connections between money and politics extremely valuable and saw how she could utilize her experience to make an impact. “Having worked on issue campaigns primarily, I really see how money in politics affects campaigns. I’ve worked in health care and environmental campaigns and I’ve seen how corrupting money in politics can be.”

“There’s this moment of reckoning where advocates have realized that if we are going to tackle these issues, that we need to change the system and the way we fund campaigns. That’s where PC comes in. I’m always going to be an organizer, but if we want to organize campaigns to actually accomplish something, we need to tackle the money and PC is the one organization pushing a fundamental alternative to the current system.”

At Public Campaign, Betty will oversee the operations of the Washington, D.C. office and also serve as the liaison to a broad range of national and state organizations, many of which she worked with during her time at ICAN.

We’re excited to add another experienced staff member to our team and our Public Campaign family.