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A campaign-financing system that works

Posted on October 23, 2008 by Staff

It might be surprising to see two candidates running against each other in a hotly contested insurance commissioner race writing a joint guest column three weeks before a major election. But then again, stranger things have happened.

We are two very different candidates, with different experiences and different visions for insurance in North Carolina. While we don’t agree on much, we do agree on this: Candidates running for commissioner of insurance shouldn’t rely on big checks from the insurance industry to finance their campaigns. Indeed, there shouldn’t be any question of a conflict of interest when it comes to our state’s top executives, whether Republican or Democrat.

That’s why both of us have enrolled in North Carolina’s first-ever Voter-Owned Elections program for Council of State. The program is available to candidates for commissioner of insurance, state auditor and superintendent of public instruction. It allows candidates to receive a public campaign grant if they can first prove broad community support by collecting hundreds of small donations and also agree to strict spending and fundraising limits.

Because we’re using the program, we’ve been able to refuse every check over $200 and rely solely on small donors and the public for support. While other candidates are begging for money, we’re out campaigning in a grassroots way every day. And because we both signed up, we are competing on a level playing field with essentially the same amount of money. The quality of our ideas and our experience, not the size of our wallets, will determine the election outcome.

This new program is part of a growing trend across the country to provide an alternative to the broken, billion-dollar campaign money chase — a price tag which grows larger every year, pricing out ordinary citizens and many well-qualified candidates. In North Carolina, we’ve had a publicly financed system for our appellate judges since 2004 and it has had tremendous success, drastically reducing the financial dominance of a narrow group of donors over our judicial system. So too, we hope this new program will restore faith in our top executive offices, return elections to the people and ensure that our public officials serve the public, not groups that use donations to gain influence.

Running under Voter-Owned Elections over the last eight months, we’ve seen the program’s benefits first-hand. Every day, we wake up without the burden of raising thousands of dollars from perfect strangers. Every day, we know there’s no need to schmooze with powerful industry leaders and VIPs. Every day, we are relieved by the knowledge that we can spend the entire day listening to voters and serving the people of North Carolina.

Because of Voter-Owned Elections, we’ve gotten to travel all across this state and hear people’s perspectives on everything from hurricane relief and auto insurance premiums to bail bondsmen and grants for firefighters. The program’s even helped revive some of the old retail-style politics of yore, with ample time to visit courthouses and BBQ joints and festivals on the campaign trail. And it has allowed us to spend more time thinking about the problems and opportunities this job would entail, preparing us for our service should we be elected.

So during this last month of the election — as pretty much every other office is inundated with campaign cash — you can rest assured that at least in this race we’re running the clean way. No matter which one of us wins on Nov. 4, there need not be any concern about the debts owed to wealthy donors or lobbyists by the state’s top insurance regulator. This year, our campaigns have been accountable to only one owner — the public — which is the way it should be.

Wayne Goodwin is the Democratic Party nominee for NC Insurance Commissioner, John Odom is the Republican Party nominee. You can learn more about their publicly financed campaigns by visiting their websites at www.WayneGoodwin.org and www.odom4doi.com.

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