"There is a very radical measure which would, I believe, work a substantial improvement in our system of conducting a campaign, although I am well aware that it will take some time for people so to familiarize themselves with such a proposal as to be willing to consider its adoption. The need for collecting large campaign funds would vanish if Congress provided an appropriation for the proper and legitimate expenses of each of the great national parties, an appropriation ample enough to meet the necessity for thorough organization and machinery, which requires a large expenditure of money. Then the stipulation should be made that no party receiving campaign funds from the Treasury should accept more than a fixed amount from any individual subscriber or donor; and the necessary publicity for receipts and expenditures could without difficulty be provided."
- Theodore Roosevelt, 1907 State of the Union Address

"Today the amount of money spent in top ten competitive Senate races averages $34 million per campaign - double what it was just four years ago. It takes a mountain of money - about $7 million on average - even to lose a Senate campaign. This is not sustainable," said Durbin. "People who say the public shouldn't have to pay for elections are missing the point: The American people already pay for elections - in ways that favor incumbents and special interests and in a Congressional agenda spawned too many times by those who finance our campaigns. Public financing will cost us only a fraction of what the current system costs."

"Five years ago today, the Senate passed the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reforms banning huge soft-money donations to political parties. Earlier this year, we passed lobbying reforms," said Durbin. "But the truth is, we can pass all the lobbying and ethics reforms in the world and it won't solve the real problem. Special interest money will always find new loopholes to work its way into campaigns until we change the system fundamentally."

-Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.), Sponsor, Fair Elections Now Act

"I am joining Senator Durbin in introducing legislation in the Senate to provide for public financing because I believe it will be a significant step in improving public confidence in the election process. The public is understandably very distrustful of what happens in public life when there are contributions by interested parties in the political process in terms of whether that influences our official decisions. I think that it does not, but there is great public skepticism on that question and I think public financing will go a long way to restoring public confidence in the electoral system."

-Sen. Arlen Specter (D-Pa.), Sponsor, Fair Elections Now Act

“In fact, not only do I support eliminating soft money, but I support full public financing for campaigns. I am hopeful that once Shays-Meehan passes and is signed into law that we can focus our efforts on passing legislation to provide for public financing.”

As Public Campaign states in its report called ‘The Color of Money,’ it is an indisputable fact of our political system that those candidates and laws favored by wealthy contributors usually prevail over those would-be backers who cannot afford to give such large sums of money.”

- Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), February 13, 2002

“In my opinion, we need to again consider the possibility of public funding of congressional elections, following the very successful experience with clean money systems in Maine and Arizona.”

- Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), March 20, 2002

“We have many more important campaign finance issues to explore, from improving the access of candidates to broadcast media to introducing aspects of public financing into the system. I look forward to continuing to work to improve the system.”

- Sen. Jon Corzine (D-NJ), March 20, 2002

Sen. McCain appeared on NOW! with Bill Moyers for an interview to promote his new book Worth The Fighting For: A Memoir on December 13, 2002. Moyers talked to Sen. McCain about his book, his landmark campaign finance legislation that was signed into law this year, and what he thought about the Clean Elections law in Arizona. Below is Sen. McCain's answer on public financing in his home state:

BILL MOYERS: Senator, in your home state of Arizona, a number of candidates recently were elected to office running with public funding, public financing. Would you support it? Would you endorse, what do you think about that experiment there?

SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: I think it's good overall. I think it needs to, like any other new experiment, it needs to have some wrinkles taken out of it. But we had more people run for public office than any time in the history of our state, and that's what it was all about.

As I say, there's some fixes that need to be made, but it was a new experiment, and overall I think was very successful and interestingly the ones who are running, you know what they're telling me? They said, surprise, surprise, I spend my time talking to voters not to contributors.

BILL MOYERS: Do you think that could become a model for the nation as a whole?

SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: Absolutely.