The trend continues in the presidential race.  As the Campaign Finance Institute's analysis of April fundraising numbers shows, small donors constitute a substantial majority of the recent financial support for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Both Democratic candidates raised more than half of their April funds in increments of $200 or less.  John McCain remains dependent on large donors for the majority of his support.  This does not tell the whole story -- after all, all three candidates relied on major donor support to launch their campaigns -- but it portends an exciting six months leading up to the November election.  Hopefully more and more small donors buy into the presidential election process with a contribution and feel a greater stake in the outcome.

As I've noted in the past, this shouldn't be confused with trends in the races for Congress, which are moving in the opposite direction, where major donors dominate and small donors are "not a factor."  We need Clean Elections-style public financing for Congress now more than ever.

The Politico ran with a story today, "Reform Allies Defend, Hold Fire on McCain" detailing the response of reform groups to the McCain and Obama candidacies, heavily implying that Common Cause and other reform groups are afraid to criticize McCain and even that we have no credibility in commenting on the presidential race because of our once-close relationship with McCain.

The story ignores that Common Cause has already publicly taken McCain to task: our letter in March explicitly urged McCain to support reforms "both in actions and in words" and stated that "it is clear to us that you need an FEC vote to allow you to withdraw" from the primary public financing system.

And it leaves out the most important question on reform in this election cycle: what will the candidates do to reform our democracy and get big money out of politics if elected?  Indeed, we already addressed this question with two of our reform allies, putting together a comprehensive review of what each candidate (McCain, Obama, Clinton) has done or committed to do if elected.  

Common Cause is far from the only organization bemoaning the focus on questions of "what is [candidate] doing on the campaign trail?" instead of the more important question of "what will [candidate] do in his/her term as President?"  That problem is one of the press in general, on all policy issues, not just democracy reform.  Nevertheless, as we've said time and again, that is the question we ought to ask of the presidential candidates.  For the Politico to leave that out is an error that misses a critical question we've put to McCain, Obama, and Clinton.  Feel free to read our analysis here.

After months without a functioning FEC, as we called on Senate leadership to find suitable nominees and re-constitute the important -- if often ineffectual -- commission in time for the peak of election season, this week it looked like we might have caught a break.  Sen. Harry Reid's office spoke with the White House, and the White House sent six FEC nominations (three D, three R) to the Senate.

How quickly hopes can crumble.

We've recently heard that Sen. Mitch McConnell is poised to insist on a package deal -- all or none -- rather than allowing each nominee to get an up or down vote.

This is an unworkable proposal, not unexpected from McConnell, a bitter opponent to all campaign finance regulation.  First, the choice of nominees reflects a remarkably partisan and subversive intention towards the FEC, in particular the selection of Hans von Spakovsky and Donald McGhan and the removal of current chairman David Mason from the list.  CC Prez Bob Edgar sent this letter to the entire U.S. Senate on Wednesday.  Here's part of his beef:

The presidential public financing system is broken and needs to updated and expanded.  We have no congressional public financing system, while a strong proposal--the Fair Elections Now Act--sits in Congress and could move, especially if the next President is supportive.

With all the furor over who's taking public financing in the primary and general elections of 2008, the bigger question for our democracy and the sanity of our campaign finance system is: What will any of these candidates do to reform the system if they are elected?

Common Cause, with our allies Public Campaign and Public Citizen, addressed that question today in this memo, "Presidential Candidates and Public Financing of Elections."

The clear message, in all of the recent confusion, accusations and borderline chaos about public financing, is that this is a broken system overdue for a major update to reflect the current costs and timing of campaigns.  We'll have a lengthier statement on that coming out within moments.  Inaction from Congress over the past several years has allowed the presidential public financing to remain antiquated as campaigns have become increasingly expensive and have begun much earlier.

Our goal must be to update and expand the program in time for the 2012 election.  Nevertheless, it has still played an important role in this election.  The latest questions over whether Sen. McCain is in or out of the primary public financing system were enough to make my head spin, but if you want the blow by blow details, we've pulled them together below the fold.

Rick Hasen provides a useful summary of the ongoing developments in John McCain's campaign fundraising with regard to public financing in the primary race.

The crux of this question is whether McCain can opt out of the public financing system after using a complicated maneuver involving public funds to secure a bank loan to his campaign.  McCain's campaign legal counsel says yes, while the FEC chair says no.

But in coming to an answer, as Hasen describes, this is a "pickle," since the FEC -- which has enforcement authority here -- does not have enough members for a quorum.  Why is that?