Thursday, February 26, 2015

Chicago Voters Endorse Campaign Finance Reform


Chicago voters endorsed by a wide margin Tuesday a plan to institute public campaign financing and limit outside contributions.

The ballot measure, though non-binding, begins a process that will now move to city and state government, where legislation would be drafted.

The Ballot Referendum asked whether the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois should “reduce the influence of special interest money in elections by financing campaigns using small contributions from individuals and a limited amount of public money,” and voters signaled yes by a 58-point margin, 79 percent to 21 percent.

The “small donor matching” system proposes to provide public money to match small contributions by individual donors — a plan proponents say will weaken the power of special interest money, open the pool of candidates to average citizens and restore faith in an election process seen by voters as controlled by a wealthy few.











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