Brian, you make some great points. I think public finance should be made a primary issue. Money and politics is a mix for disaster.

Curious that Caprio felt it was appropriate to return the contributions only after the media and public eye turned his way. The problem is not the solicitation of donations, but the tacit acceptance.

This is exactly why groups from the State Council of Churches, to Clean Water Action, to OCG support this reform in Rhode Island.

Is people like the Attorney General, that take money from groups, organizations and individuals they directly regulate. He took money from Blue Cross executives and worse, Blue Cross PAC. For what reason other than influencing decisions would the Blue Cross PAC contribute to the people's advocate before the PUC when they need the rate hikes? He took 12k as reported by the journal from telecommunications companies that go before the PUC where he is supposed to be the people's advocate. How about this talk on Dan Yorke about him taking money from CEOs, PACs and attorneys associated with the hospital merger? Lynch took money from people he was supposed to be assisting the US attorney in investigating through operation dollar bill. The AG has perpetrated the most blatant pay to play scheme going in this state over the last 7 years and it will only get worse if he is elected governor.

Chafee on the other can't raise any money without his vote in the Senate to sell. His finance reports as a Senator were who's who lists of the financial institutions that destroyed this country's economy last year. From AIG to Goldman Sachs, Chafee was bought and paid for in DC.

glad to see the Caprio campaign monitors this site and has a ready made distraction reponse in the can.

I noticed there are no teabaggers (their name not mine) responding to this. Funny how they are all grass roots and all but when it comes to money in politics you don't hear a peep. Especially since Obama's HC Plan is a giveaway to Big Insurance, his War plan calls for a record increase & he refuses to really reform the banks with structural change. Out of self interest you would think they would be worried that the money will follow the Democrats who - in Obama's words- put a top priority on "saving Capitalism" by rescuing "too big to fail" corporations. Where are the "grass roots" when we need them?

I agree with Brian on the basis of the public finance plea. I think Caprio does a pretty good job and I do like what I hear about Gina. They're not the reason we need public finance, it's that we need public finance in general. EVERY candidate on both sides has some type of fishy finance thing going on. I don't think it's fair to just attack Caprio, Gina, Obama, Lynch, etc. It's a universal problem and we should look at it in that respect. I think anyone who supports public finance would agree with that. I also hope Brian didn't use the topic to attack candidates he just doesn't like, because any candidate he does like, has similar finance as well.

Without intending for there to be any opinion in my question, have there been estimates on what this would cost? I'm guessing this would apply to every race from President to local dog catcher. What would be qualifications to be eligible for the funds? How/who would determine how much each race gets?

I'm not passing judgement on the idea, I'm just wondering about specifics.

Maine & Arizona have this plan so you may want to check out how they do it & the associated costs. Commoncause.org has info on this as well. From what I have gathered this has been well received where it has been tried with the net good government reaping social and monetary rewards so consider this in your equation.

great questions all through.

Each level of government is responsible for determining their campaign laws.

At the federal level, the Fair Elections Now Act would enact a voluntary system of public financing for congressional races, and is estimated to cost between $700 and $850 million per year.
http://www.action.fairelectionsnow.org/fairelections

At the state level, the Fair Elections Act that Senator Perry and Representative Ajello have introduced since 2006 would enable public financing for state legislative and statewide offices. The cost has been estimated at $7 million a year, or one quarter of one percent of General Revenue.
http://www.fairelectionsri.org/issue.php

I've heard rumors that the Providence City Council may introduce a resolution that would allow for public financing at the municipal level, probably leaving out the mayoral seat for the time being. I have not heard any cost estimates.

The grant amount is determined by the median expenditure over the past two election cycles, and varies by seat.

To qualify for the grant you must demonstrate grassroots support through collecting a set number of $5 qualifying contributions. This is the same mechanism that has been adopted by Maine, Arizona and Connecticut.

Any more? This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

If anyone else is interested on the "how it works", the 2 page pdf file is here: http://bit.ly/cNLEZp

I think it all sounds like a good idea and in reality $7M isn't a large amount of money, but in the current environment, if the legislature had to choose between $7M in fair elections or $7M to another program, the elections law is DOA. I think it all makes sense, but it's going to be a hard sell in this environment.

That's great that Perry and Ajello are behind this, but what about Murphy/Fox/Paiva-Weed/Connors? These are people who regularly have 6-figure campaign war chests. Will they be willing to give up the huge advantage they have over someone scratching together a few hundred bucks over a spaghetti fundraiser?

Senator Connors has co-sponsored it. Lt. Gov Roberts co-sponsored it in her time in the Senate. Secretary Mollis has publicly endorsed it from his current position -> http://www.fairelectionsri.org/coalition.php

Regarding the others, why don't you ask them? And please, add Chairman Costantino to your list.

It's pretty thoughtless to go from recognizing that Caprio may have an ethical problem to demanding government funding (meaning forced taxpayer funding) of campaigns. Have you considered other potential solutions? Did you think for more than ten seconds before writing this article?

It is also an insult to the public to insinuate that money alone would blind them to the relative merits of the contending candidates. I have respect for my fellow citizens. I believe that if they are fully and promptly informed of campaign funding sources, they can see through attempts to influence elections.

Sunlight and all that.

So I would much rather see a requirement that all campaign donations be publicly disclosed within five days of the contribution, and let the informed public decide what it all means.

looks like Caprio eand Raimondo are the Wall Street investment candidates --is there collusion between the two---will Gina replace Frank with his blessing and probably with the same contributors from the well-heeled investment 'community' ?

Looks like Main Street does not register in their firmament.

is Frank really a DINO---Democrat In Name Only ? the Repubs really want him on their side

Al, what special knowledge do you have to make such predictions?

All the Repubs I've talked to wouldn't take Caprio in no matter how much money he brought with him. Where do you get your information?

If you haven't met Gina and don't have specific information, your comment about her is stupid and reckless. She's a genuine civic-minded person - the kind we need more of in this state.

Todd Giroux, Independent Candidate for Governor. www.rigovernor2010.com

Economic Development Policy to be in line with.. “ The 90% of small business to restart the local economy "
Credit cash flow must be made available to small business even as property asset value and credit scores fall. Ten years attempts to bring bio-tech without a technology corridor or retraining has failed the 90% of small brick-mortar & service businesses. Housing values will return based upon demand when the toxic assets are set aside for troubled homeowners to rebuld their lives through foreclosure protection without bankruptcy.

The True Independent Candidate on behalf of the citizen, Giroux can broker the deals that turn unemployment dollars, stimulus dollars, and pension dollars into middleclass, mainstreet accessable working green jobs, and homestead protection on a statewide level for the people who made those dollars.

Giroux for Governor 2010

I live in Rhode Island, and I contributed to Gina Raimondo's campaign. I would like to share with the blog readers why I made this contribution, as well as make my own plea for people to reconsider the negative comments that regularly appear against Gina in this blog.

I first met Gina 16 years ago when I was on the Rhode Island Rhodes Scholarship Committee and Gina was applying as a senior from Harvard. Her academic record made her eligible as a candidate for the scholarhsip, but what impressed me was her strong record of leadership and public service at Harvard. Included in that record was an internship Gina had with then-Congressman Jack Reed, who wrote a letter for Gina which was one of the strongest any of us on the Committee had ever seen. Gina went on to be selected as a Rhodes Scholar by the regional committee, becoming the first Rhode Islander to gain that honor in more than a decade.

When Gina returned from Oxford, she went to Yale Law School, where there is a strong public interest program, and as she related in her newspaper story, she found her "comfort zone" assisting New Haven residents in getting a laundromat, not exactly the sort of high powered, corporate law option that was available to her there.

Since then, Gina has returned to Rhode Island to help start up a number of Rhode Island companies. She has helped these companies to succeed, especially in the medical technology field. These are Rhode Island companies and Rhode Island jobs, so it is not clear to me what this has to do with "Wall Street."

Gina and Andy are friends, and I am proud of what she has accomplished as well as her continuing commitment to our State and my neighborhood, where Gina taken something of great value to her and invested it in the community when she and Andy decided to enroll their daughter in the Providence Public Schools.

I have known Gina for 13 years, and I can say that she has strong moral character. She makes decisions for herself based on what it is right, not based on what is expedient. I think Rhode Island would be very fortunate to have her as an elected official in any position, and her skill set would make her one of the best qualified Treasurers we have ever had. Gina's list of contributors does not bother me; instead, it says to me that she has a wide circle of supporters who value her public service in Rhode Island, even if it will not help them directly in the other states in which they reside.

For what it is worth, I have met Tom Sgouros and I think he is a good man too, someone whom I could have been happy to support had I not already known Gina for 13 years. And that leads me to another point that I think that some people who comment on this blog should consider. Ronald Reagan used to invoke what he called the "Eleventh Commandment", which he said was "Thou shalt not speak ill of a Republican." It seems to me that there are a number of contributors to this blog who know and support Tom Sgouros, and want to see him win. That is to Tom's credit. I do not think, however, that Tom would support the actions of those commenters who think that the best way for them to support Tom is to malign Gina's character, particularly through the use of unfounded insinuation.

If these two candidates disagree on the issues, let's have an open discussion about those disagreements, and then the voters can decide which position they prefer. If each candidate wants to make the case that their qualifications match up best with the job, then let's have an open discussion about that too, so the voters can decide whom to support. In contrast, those commenters who think that they are helping the Progressive cause by smearing a candidate who believes in their general mission, I would ask you to reconsider. Maybe we need a Twelfth Commandment for Democrats to match Ronald Reagan's Eleventh Commandment.

As many people here have said, Fair Elections (publicly financed) would return elections to being about who has the best ideas for moving our state in the right direction again rather than who can raise the most money. At Contrarian View, while its nice to think that disclosure can solve all our problems, right now 97% of elections in Rhode Island are won by the candidate with more money (http://fairelectionsri.org/media/BenefitsGeneral.pdf), and its pretty hard to believe that incrementally strengthening disclosure requirements alone would fix this problem.

As far as the cost goes, in Arizona and Maine, which have had public financing since 2000, the cost of the system has consistently lowered as more candidates use the system. More participating candidates means less "fair fight funds" are needed against high spending privately financed candidates. In Maine, the cost is now less than $2.50 per resident.

To Todd Giroux, as a candidate, what are your views on Fair Elections for Rhode Island?

Greetings,

The need for campaign dollars would be greatly reduced if all candidates were given equal time on public Access to focus upon issues rather than pay to play donations to treasurer or attorney general public employees or to burden the public tax dollars. As my campaign gains momentum for consumer protection to Homestead,Jobs and Economy; I am sure for the greater good we will need the matching funds.

Thank you,
Todd Giroux