Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Running Clean in Albuquerque

With elections underway in Albuquerque, Voting Matters wants to thank the candidates who are using the public campaign financing system to run their campaigns. This year, only 3 of the 7 candidates for council opted in to this system that takes private money out of elections.

Those three candidates are Isaac Benton (district 2), Israel Chavez (district 4), and Pat Davis (district 6).

We have long advocated for public financing because winning candidates end up beholden not to any special interest groups, corporations, or wealthy individuals, but rather to the public at large- and that is how it should be. Public financing has been under attack from people who want to be able to buy elections. But Albuquerque has persevered by amending its system to conform with unreasonable court decisions, and we are proud of the city, Issac, Israel, and Pat for demonstrating their faith in fair elections.