Support Campaign Finance Reform in Virginia
The Governor and Our Elected Officials in the Virginia General Assembly.
We believe the time has come for comprehensive campaign finance reform in Virginia and we need your voice to convey this message to our elected officials. While in 2022, it is disappointing that out of two dozen campaign finance bills introduced, only four survived, it is clear that legislators are increasingly aware that voters in our Commonwealth care that our state has the laxest regulations in the country. Last year's Wason Center polling results confirms this with nearly 80 percent of Virginia voters agreeing that big money interests have too much influence on our elections.
Legislators can't ignore that Virginia is one of only five states with no limits on campaign finance contributions and that as of 2020, Virginia was ranked 46th out of 50 states in the S.W.A.M.P Index a cross-state comparative analysis of transparency and accountability.
The following petition will be sent to Virginia legislators to stress the importance of campaign finance reform in next year's 2023 General Assembly. If you agree with us, please add your voice and sign our petition!
Your signature on the petition will help make it a crucial component of our lobbying efforts.
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Sponsored by
To:
The Governor and Our Elected Officials in the Virginia General Assembly.
From:
[Your Name]
We believe the time has come for comprehensive campaign finance reform in Virginia. Accordingly, we call on you, as our representatives, to act on this important issue and finally deliver results to citizens of the Commonwealth.
Virginians overwhelmingly support this issue. In a recent 2021 poll, conducted by the nonpartisan Wason Center, nearly 80% of Virginians from both parties agreed for the need to curtail money coming into our elections from big campaign donors. Furthermore, it found that majorities of Virginians also support creating contribution limits, strengthening disclosure, and restricting the personal use of campaign funds.
Despite this public support, most of the campaign finance bills introduced in the 2021 General Assembly died. 24 bills were introduced and only 4 survived. Many weren't even discussed in the Privileges and Elections Committees of the Senate and the House of Delegates. This disparity between elected officials' actions and the opinions of those who voted for them simply cannot continue.
Therefore, we request that you support the following in upcoming legislative sessions:
1) Passing comprehensive campaign finance laws in the General Assembly. This includes joining 45 other states around the county who have already limited campaign contributions and strengthened their disclosure laws. We should also ban contributions from public service corporations, strengthen oversight by the Department of Elections as well as restrict personal use of campaign contributions.
2) Introduce and pass a resolution which endorses overturning Citizens United through an amendment to the U.S. Constitution, thereby joining the 21 states that have already done so. Such an amendment to The U.S. Constitution would allow Virginia to safeguard our elections from the corrosive impact of unregulated money coming into Virginia.
We appreciate your concern on these issues and look forward to your action on these vital issues that affect all Virginians.