Yesterday Senators Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) announced that they will push for public financing of federal elections.

Sen. Durbin is the second-ranking member of the Senate Democratic leadership. Dodd is the most senior Democratic member of the committee that oversees campaign finance regulation.

Durbin told The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper, that he believes that campaign finance is at the core of the current Abramoff scandals. Dodd also told the newspaper that a major source of potential corruption exists in the “campaign fundraising area.”

In response to the two senators’ announcement, Public Campaign executive director Nick Nyhart released a statement:

“Senators Durbin and Dodd have the right idea. The only way to restore public trust in Congress is to deal with the root of the Abramoff, Cunningham and DeLay scandals, and that is campaign money.

“At the heart of each of these scandals is a core problem: Our public representatives, the holders of our trust, need huge sums of money to finance their campaigns, and today’s campaign finance system puts the interests of elite donors ahead of the interests of the public. Influence peddlers like Jack Abramoff would have no power if elected officials didn’t feel compelled to offer them access and influence.

“Senators Durbin and Dodd are talking about public financing of federal elections because they understand that influence-peddling will continue to plague Washington unless we offer candidates a ‘clean,’ disinterested source of public funding for their campaigns.

“We urge all members of Congress to take a close look at the success of full public financing models—also known as “Clean Elections”—in the states of Arizona, Maine, North Carolina, and Vermont, which have inspired similar systems that are currently being implemented in the states of Connecticut, New Jersey, and New Mexico, as well as the cities of Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Portland, Oregon.

“We anticipate a robust debate in Congress on the merits of public financing for federal elections, and we look forward to working with Members as they take on this vital issue.”