The state’s pilot clean elections program has had a better showing this time out than it had two years ago, but I think it’s still premature to call it an unqualified success.
Yes, all six major party candidates in both the 14th and 24th legislative districts managed to collect the requisite contributions, but two Libertarians in the 14th failed to do so, as did three Republicans in the 37th (a district so Democratic that Republicans can seem like fringe candidates).
As anyone who has read this blog or my columns both for the Princeton Packet and the Progressive Populist knows, I am a supporter of clean elections and I agree that the enthusiasm for the program, especially here in the 14th, is great news.
But the hyperbole surrounding the announcement overstates what reaching the threshold actually means.
Here is Assemblyman Bill Baroni, the Hamilton Republican who is running for state Senate and a sponsor of the clean elections law:
“This may be one of the most important days in New Jersey’s fight to clean up elections. For two years, we’ve been hearing the naysayers say it couldn’t be done.”
A bit of an overstatement. All we have actually learned, so far, is that the thresholds that have been set and the contributions figures agreed to appear to be fair. They streamlined the program, but set a high enough bar to ensure that only candidates with serious support had a shot at the ballot (if you can’t collect 800 $10 contributions, you probably don’t have a lot of actual support).
What we don’t know at the moment is whether the program will have the desired impact on the system.
Remember, the program in its current form has been tried in only three districts, two of which were not competitive. It has not been tried during a primary and it was not put in place until after the candidates had already filed to run — a key point, because one of the main rationales for supporting clean elections is to expand the pool of available candidates beyond those with access to party money.
The reality is that the six candidates in the 14th, for instance, had access to significant campaign war chests had they chosen to forgo clean elections or had the state opted for a different district. The calculus that went into choosing the candidates — making sure that Hamilton is represented on the ticket, for instance, and making sure there is at least one Middlesex County candidate from each party — remained in place. None of the candidates stand out for being outsiders or newcomers to the process (two sitting Assembly members, three current or former municipal office holders and a former state official).
Getting what is essentially dirty, private cash out of the system is a real benefit, but that should not be the only goal and the only criteria for judging the program. And it should not be its only goal.
The clean elections system deserves a full run — all 40 districts for both primary and general elections, with third-party candidates being treated as equal players (unlike the current experiment, which provides them with a pittance when compared with what the major party hopefuls receive).
Only then will we have a real sense of whether the program can expand access to office beyond the run of political insiders who tend to rise of the ladder in this state and whether the influence of private money can be tamed.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
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Hank Kalet 