From the Sun-Times:

How to vote Big Money out of office

November 8, 2006
BY CINDY RICHARDS
As I write this, the polls still are open and people still are trudging through the misty weather to do their duty as citizens of our democracy.

As you read this, the accusations, recriminations, charges and countercharges still will be flying. And we, the people, will be shaking our heads wondering how it all got so bad.

The answer: money.

The old saying is money is the root of all evil. Certainly, it is the root of political evil. And as long as we continue to force our elected officials and their challengers to grovel for cash from anyone willing to write a check, we sow the seeds of our own woe.

There is no shortage of stories highlighting what the cash is buying for corporations, industries, professions and others that see it as good business to grease the campaigns of their future representatives, whether at the local, state or national level.

In Illinois, it doesn't stop with buying legislators. Contributors also are buying judges.

The Illinois Campaign for Political Reform, a nonpartisan group that keeps watch on politics and money, said in a press release last week that two appellate court races in southern Illinois were breaking the bank. Why? Because trial lawyers and tort reformers were duking it out, using these races as a proxy for their fight over proposals to limit awards in civil cases.

One candidate -- Stephen McClynn, the Republican running for judge in the 5th District Appellate Court -- had received more than $2.2 million in Political Action Committee donations as of Nov. 2, the ICPR said.

Most of the money in those races was being used to pay for attack ads, the group said. Attack ads in judicial races. That is how low we have stooped.

Not surprisingly, the folks at the Illinois Campaign for Political Reform also note that surveys taken after a similarly nasty 2004 campaign for judge of the 5th District Supreme Court found that "judicial elections conducted this way do severe damage to popular confidence in the judiciary."

There really is only one way to stop this madness. We, the people, need to become the special interests to whom our elected officials are beholden.

It's not enough that we pay all their bills once they get to City Hall or Springfield or Capitol Hill. We have to do more to help them get there.

That means we need to change the way campaigns are funded and be willing to step up and foot the bill. Public funding of campaigns is the only hope we have for getting bad money out of politics.

I know, I know: There are lots of questions about how it would work, who would be eligible for the public money, how it would help or hurt outsiders -- even questions about whether banning private contributions to politicians would limit someone's constitutional right to free expression.

Those are serious issues, but I believe each can be resolved. All we need to do is engage the very smart people who write campaign finance reform laws in ways that leave large loopholes for major campaign contributors to continue giving and get those folks to work on our side.

Common Cause, the national nonprofit that agitates for honest, open and accountable government, has asked congressional candidates in this election to sign a pledge to put voters first by agreeing to limit campaign spending in exchange for public funding, limit gifts from lobbyists and fully disclose any gifts they get.

Among the 364 candidates and incumbents who signed the pledge are Illinois Democrats Bobby Rush, Jesse Jackson Jr., Tammy Duckworth, Danny Davis, Jan Schakowsky and Dan Seals.

Among those who have not signed, according the votersfirstpledge.org Web site, are Democrats Melissa Bean, Daniel Lipinski, Luis Gutierrez and Rahm Emanuel and Republicans Peter Roskam, David McSweeney, Mark Kirk, Jerry Weller, Judy Biggert and J. Dennis Hastert.

As the dust settles on this mid-term election, the only remaining question is: Will the winners be serving the people who elected them or the people who paid for them?