{"id":108756,"date":"2015-10-19T21:08:05","date_gmt":"2015-10-20T03:08:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/groups-want-big-money-out-of-politics\/"},"modified":"2015-10-19T21:08:05","modified_gmt":"2015-10-20T03:08:05","slug":"groups-want-big-money-out-of-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/groups-want-big-money-out-of-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Groups want \u2018big money\u2019 out of politics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Student
Student and progressive groups gathered on the Auraria Campus in Denver on Thursday to call for campaign-finance reform amid the release of third-quarter donation disclosures. The groups created a \u201cfaces of democracy petitioning wall,\u201d in which students took photos of themselves, while holding signs calling for getting \u201cbig money\u201d out of politics.<\/span>PETER MARCUS\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2013 As the latest quarterly presidential fundraising numbers were trickling in on Thursday, Colorado students and progressive groups called for campaign-finance reform.<\/p>\n

At the center of the issue is an effort to empower ordinary citizens to contribute, as opposed to a wealthy few who contribute large amounts of cash through special-interest groups and political-action committees.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re reminded today of how wealthy donors and special interests dominate our elections,\u201d said Jessica Johnnes, a campaign organizer with the Colorado Public Interest Research Group, or CoPIRG.<\/p>\n

Democrat candidate Hillary Clinton has raised about $75 million, with $28 million coming in just the past three months.<\/p>\n

Her closest challenger, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, raised more than $40 million in total, with an impressive $26 million in the third quarter. Sanders is a bit unique, however, in that he received small donations from more than 650,000 contributors and has refused to form a SuperPAC.<\/p>\n

Among Republicans, Ben Carson reported nearly $21 million in donations in the third quarter, bringing his total to about $31 million.<\/p>\n

The New York Times recently reported that just 158 families, along with companies they own or control, contributed $176 million in the first phase of the campaign, nearly half the early money.<\/p>\n

In the coming days, details of where the third-quarter money came from will be released. But campaign-finance reform advocates say it should come as no surprise that \u201cbig money\u201d has been overshadowing the race.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to be this way,\u201d Johnnes said. \u201cWe can put everyday citizens back in charge of our elections by amplifying the voices of small donors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reform advocates point to the Government by the People Act, a bill introduced in Congress. It would provide a tax credit for small donations, and would match those contributions with public dollars.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen just a handful of large donors dominate fundraising efforts, average voters and the issues that concern them are not heard,\u201d said Adam Gerkin, a University of Colorado Denver student, who participated in an event Thursday on the Auraria Campus in Denver.<\/p>\n

But to make any significant progress, there would need to be an erosion of the Supreme Court\u2019s Citizens United decision five years ago. Seventy-four percent of Colorado voters in 2012 backed a ballot question that encouraged a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. Still, there remains little hope of reversing the high court\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

Johnnes said the Government by the People Act represents some semblance of hope, adding: \u201cIt\u2019s not going to curtail all of the outside spending \u2026 but it creates a whole model that\u2019s new and tackles some of the other problems.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

amid financial disclosures<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":108757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[2811,3843,21,266,13,826],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-108756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-campaign-finance","tag-campaign-finance-reform","tag-cortez","tag-election","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-political-campaigns"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108756"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108756\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108756"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=108756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}