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Two states have funded campaign laws to reduce the influence of special interest money and promote electoral competition—by folks just like you.

Photo by Michael York

Maine state Rep. Jackie Norton says she isn't some "professional politician" pursuing power or money. Nope, she's a 38-year high school math teacher who sacrifices part of her annual income to represent the citizens of her Bangor district, and whose highest ambition is—honest—to improve the lot of public school teachers and students.

"I'm very pro-public education," says Rep. Norton, who belongs to the House Education and Cultural Affairs Committee, "and I believe that happy, healthy teachers make for happy, healthy students."

And that's not all. This Maine Education Association (MEA) member answers only to her constituents, because her last campaign was publicly funded under Maine's "clean election" law. Passed in 1996, the law was designed to reduce the influence of special interest money in politics and to increase electoral competition.

Four states have passed clean election laws, but just two of them, Arizona and Maine, have fully funded them. In those states, clean election candidates for state office agree to forgo self-financing and private contributions, except for a token amount of "seed money." The hopefuls must then submit a set number of petition signatures and five-dollar checks from registered voters to qualify for public matching funds.

The jury is still out on the ultimate value of these laws, but politically active folks in the two clean election states report that this process is steadily yielding these results:

More time to campaign on the issues. Arizona state Treasurer David Petersen, a conservative Republican who ran "clean" in his last election, told the U.S. Government Accounting Office: "In previous elections, I had to spend one-third to one-half of my time raising money. Clean elections made me become more of a grassroots candidate."

Maine Rep. Norton, a Democrat, agrees. "When I ran [as a privately funded candidate] for my first term," she recalls, "I spent as much time trying to raise money as meeting constituents, and I'm not in the habit of asking for money. This law freed me up to knock on doors and to ask constituents how they feel—to educate me to the issues."

More education-friendly politicians. "Most of the candidates we supported in 2002 were clean and most won," points out Arizona Education Association (AEA) staffer Jim Lewis. "The House and Senate are better on public education, relatively speaking, than they were before."

Arizona's foremost "clean" incumbent is Gov. Janet Napolitano, who won a tight race two years ago with $3.2 million in public campaign funding. "She's a wonderful governor and a tremendous education advocate," says AEA President Penny Kotterman, "and she's proposing another progressive state budget this year."

Gov. Napolitano even joined 4,000 AEA members and other education stakeholders at a March 3 state Capitol rally to promote her budget—which advocates everything from all-day kindergarten to a boost in educator pay—and called on Congress to pay for the mandates of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the so-called No Child Left Behind law.

Fewer pressures on politicians. The Maine clean election law, which also limits special-interest political action committee (PAC) donations to $250 per candidate, has shielded Rep. Norton from some pretty compromising situations. "It would be horrible," she says, "to have special interests pay my way, to have to deal with them when it comes time to push the button to vote!"

Fewer electoral barriers to educators. Because of Arizona's clean election law, "new and more people" are running for office, "including our members, whom we train how to run 'clean,'" reports AEA's Lewis. There are fewer new faces in the Maine legislature, adds MEA staffer Steve Crouse, but he predicts that will change over time and the result will be "good quality legislators, if not better, than what we have now."

More quality lawmakers, perhaps, like Jackie Norton—who thinks good educators make good political material. "They're good at dealing with people and they're fairly well-informed and patient in educating people," she says. And, yes, "They're plainspoken and honest."

—Dave Winans

For more on clean election laws.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma Education Association (OEA) lobbyists and members helped persuade legislators to create the state's first new revenue stream to public education in 14 years. A new law taxes and regulates the state's thriving Native American gaming industry, and is expected to yield at least $70 million in new revenue in the first year alone.

Other hopeful news for recession-battered OEA members: Gov. Brad Henry introduced a five-year plan to boost teacher pay to the regional average and fully pay teachers' individual health care premiums. "It's terrific to have someone with some vision for education in the governor's mansion," says OEA President Roy Bishop.

South Carolina

"I like truth in advertising," says Gary West, director of computing services for Greenwood School District 50. That's why West has carefully documented a disturbing fact: The two-year-old South Carolina Education Lottery has only shared 4.1 percent of its revenue with K–12 public schools since January 2002, or about 14 percent of the lottery money designated for "education."

Since the scheme began, gas stations and convenience stores have received almost $53 million more in lottery revenues than K–12 schools.

There are other losing numbers in this big game. While the lottery has hauled in some $1.8 billion, the state has cut K–12 funding by $372 million since the end of the 2000–01 school year, slashed per-pupil spending by 11.2 percent, and underfunded its own mandate-laden education accountability law.

Washington

In the last legislative session, the Washington Education Association (WEA) won increased state funding for health care benefits and a 1 percent state increase for education support professionals, starting next year.

WEA also gained legislation improving the Washington State Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) examination process. One measure allows students to retake the 10th-grade WASL four times, while another calls for a review of WASL cut scores. In 2008, passing the WASL or an alternative process will be a state graduation requirement.

WEA's ultimate goal: ensure that no single test is used to make high-stakes decisions about students and schools.

Florida

Volunteer lobbyists from the Broward Teachers Union (BTU) joined hundreds of other Florida Education Association (FEA) members and thousands of students at a March 17 rally to save the state's lottery-funded college scholarship program from budget cuts.

"It was a wonderful event, very well-organized," says BTU First Vice President Bernie Schutz. While FEA mobilized K–12 and higher education members, Republican legislative leaders organized rally logistics—even inviting the Florida A&M marching band—and provided key speakers, including the state senate president and the current Miss America, Erika Dunlap.

Maine

The Maine Education Association (MEA) has begun to help its local affiliates document and quantify "job creep" among teachers. MEA defines this phenomenon as the continuous "expansion of responsibilities, committee meetings, assessments, and reports that are adding to the workday and workweek."

Louisiana

Members of the Lafayette Parish Association of Educators (LPAE) signed a group grievance urging their district to rethink Project Lift, an instructional method in which educators teach a concept for a week, then test students on the concept to ensure they have learned it.

"I wish they would give us flexibility," LPAE President Rick Bailey told the local newspaper. "The teachers need to be trusted to teach. We feel like Lift has violated our classrooms."

Tennessee

Five Tennessee Education Association (TEA) members told the state House Education Committee about the overwhelming paperwork that teachers face and the interruptions that detract from valuable teaching time, everything from fund-raising to bus and car duty.

The educators made several recommendations to "win back" teaching time. Chairman Les Winningham vowed to make this issue a committee priority.

Arizona

Even paraeducators in the middle of the desert must become "highly qualified" under federal law—not so easy when the nearest college is two hours away.

That's what brought eight unorganized paras to the Hayden-Winkelman Education Association. HWEA signed them up, then brought in a para test preparation workshop designed by the Arizona Education Association (AEA).

The paras took care of logistics and AEA did the rest, using NEA's test prep manual and training help from Tucson para Carol Kirkland. "We got very positive feedback and they invited us back!" said AEA staffer Jeff Thomas.

"We can help people, but they need to join the union," said HWEA President Laura Lopez. "We can call in whatever it takes to solve your problem."