The San Diego Chapter of the League of Women Voters has announced its endorsement of the San Diego Clean Elections Initiative, chapter Co-president Ann Hoiberg said in a statement.?”Clean Elections would make a fundamental difference in San Diego politics,” Hoiberg said. “We need to get money out of San Diego politics and return political power to people and our neighborhoods.”?The San Diego Clean Elections Initiative is being sponsored by Neighborhoods for Clean Elections, a grass roots coalition that is aiming to place the Clean Elections Initiative on the November 2012 ballot.?The initiative, which is also supported by Common Cause, will provide public funding for candidates for mayor and City Council who agree to a “Clean Elections Pledge.” The pledge requires that they refrain from soliciting any campaign contributions from private sources and that they further agree to refrain from spending any of their own money for their campaign.?”Clean Elections is designed to break the conflict of interest between campaign contributors and candidates,” explained Michael McQuary, chair of Neighborhoods for Clean Elections.?”San Diego city government is broken,” McQuary said. “Developers, lobbyists and special interests get almost everything they want because they grease the palms of the politicians with campaign cash. As a result, neighborhoods and ordinary citizens are often left out of the political process. And Clean Elections will help clean up San Diego City Hall.”?The San Diego Clean Elections Initiative is modeled after Clean Elections laws already on the books in several cities and states. Maine and Arizona have Clean Elections for state candidates. Portland and Albuquerque have implanted Clean Elections for local candidates.?Under the Clean Elections model, candidates who pledge to “run Clean” need to qualify for funding. The idea is to eliminate “crank” or marginal candidates in favor of those who can demonstrate community support. In San Diego, a “Clean” candidate would be required to collect $5 from 500 voters in his or her district to qualify for funding; and those proceeds would go into the city’s Clean Elections fund. Candidates would be funded based upon a formula linked to population which would currently provide approximately $90,000 in a primary and $135,000 in a general election. These amounts are, on average, less than half of what successful council candidates have spent in recent elections.?Clean Elections is a voluntary system — candidates who do not wish to opt in may still choose to run under existing rules, collecting funds from private contributors and spending their own funds.?”With Clean Elections, candidates can spend their time knocking on doors and meeting the voters they wish to serve,” Hoiberg said. “They won’t spend all of their time catering to the donor class. We will get candidates who owe their election to their constituency, the voters, instead of their contributors. What a welcome relief.”?For more information on the San Diego Clean Elections Initiative, contact Neighborhoods for Clean Elections coordinator John Hartley, at (619) 299-8870 or [email protected]. — Provided by the League of Women Voters