When Connecticut Common Cause helped to get the Citizens Elections Program passed in Connecticut, we always expected enemies of clean election reform to try and raid the fund.  What we didn't expect to  see was Leaders who helped pass the reform vote to use the fund as their own personal ATM machine.  Yet last night law makers voted overwhelmingly to raid $5 million from the Citizen Elections Fund to help address the looming budget crisis here.

There were other options.  $25 million in unclaimed bottle deposits could have been claimed instead.  However, lobbyists for the beverage companies moved quickly to influence legislators and save the $25 million to line the pockets of the companies they represent.  Instead, they took the untainted Citizen Election Funds that are designed to clean up Connecticut elections.

While the $5 million taken from the Citizens Election Fund represents 0.27% of the overall $18.4 billion budget, it is a major hit for the Citizen Elections Program itself.  This program was created in order to remove the taint of corruption from Connecticut politics and restore public trust in their elected officials.  How can trust be restored when Leaders who helped pass this program vote to raid it at the first opportunity?

As the old saying goes . . . if you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

Small donors and public funding are powering 75% of the candidates running for state legislature in Connecticut this year.  It's the first year of the state's new Citizens' Elections Program, and that's a fantastic start.  The New York Times took note of this exciting progress today:

Connecticut's initial success is remarkable; the Times acknowledges, "Connecticut's initial experience has exceeded the expectations of even its most enthusiastic supporters."  Yet the media have been largely missing or distorting this demand for reform around the country.

Over the weekend, the New York Times ran a editorial on a topic that often gets overlooked but is quickly becoming a major concern for a host of public interest organizations that count on judicial fairness: the megabucks flowing into judicial elections from special interests.  The most egregious example recently, that the Times highlights, was the CEO of a major coal company bankrolling a state Supreme Court justice's electoral campaign, and then the justice turning around and casting the deciding vote to vacate a $50 million verdict against the CEO's company.

I'm no money manager, but I'm pretty sure that the $50 million, a 1,667% return on $3 million invested in campaign contributions, is what you'd call a "good return on your investment."

Unless you're invested in a healthy democracy and a fair, impartial judicial system.  Then you'd just call that absurd and senseless and you'd push for public financing of judicial races, as we're doing.

Jack Abramoff is back up for sentencing today.  After serving part of a six-year sentence on a Florida casino fraud, he's now going to be sentenced for what he's best known for: bribing lawmakers with gifts, trips, and campaign cash and defrauding Indian tribes.

It's a sad but important reminder that in a private-money-driven political system, we'll continue to see bad actors and bad decisions made in a bad system.

We could go down a different road, which is what our Voters First Pledge campaign is all about -- getting candidates for Congress committed now, while they're running for election or reelection, to sign on in support of comprehensive public financing.

We're asking folks to send a No More Abramoffs message to Congress, to ask friends and family to do the same, and to take the message directly to the candidates by downloading and using this downloadable "Abramoff flyer" to communicate back to our future elected officials to take the Voters First Pledge.

UPDATE: Abramoff was sentenced to four years in prison.

Senate Assistant Majority Leader Dick Durbin dropped by the Big Tent today. Durbin is the champion and co-author with Sen. Arlen Specter of the bipartisan Fair Elections Now Act (S.1285), the bill to create a full public financing system for U.S. Senate races. The average Senate winner spent $9.6 million in 2006, and as Durbin likes to point out, it cost an average of over $7 million to lose a Senate race last cycle.

Durbin spoke to bloggers and other media but I caught him on his way out. I thanked him for his leadership on public financing. True to form, he ignored the praise and spoke of the work to be done. With a hostile Supreme Court on the campaign finance front, Durbin was unfazed. "We still need to do this," he said, regardless of the Court. "I don't think we're sunk, not at all."

With folks like Sen. Ken Salazar saying we need to do something on campaign finance reform, and Durbin and Specter in the lead, 2009 is shaping up to be a big and critical year to move forward in changing how we finance federal elections.