Author Archive for: Jack Noland

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), is  holding a hearing right now on the “Restore America’s Wire Act,” a bill that would ban states from legalizing online gambling. As Andrew Langer, president of the Institute for Liberty, a conservative policy advocacy group, opines in the Washington Examiner, there are a number of red

The campaign finance reform community has the president’s ear. In exciting news, a “We the People” petition to the president demanding increased transparency in our elections has now garnered more than 100,000 signatures. This means the White House must respond. The petition, organized by Rootstrikers, calls for the president to issue an executive order that would mandate that federal contractors

This is the fourth installment of our blog series on Blueprints for Democracy, a new collection of solutions policymakers can implement to give everyone a greater say in their democracy. Read the full series here. Laws are meaningless without effective enforcement mechanisms. This is true of campaign finance measures on the federal and state levels, where enforcement shortcomings have produced

‘Tis the season for must-pass budget measures. In order to avoid another government shutdown, Congress must approve a trillion-dollar spending bill by December 11. As POLITICO reports, Senate Republicans, led by longtime campaign finance reform opponent Mitch McConnell (R-KY), are considering attaching a host of riders to the budget bill, including some that would weaken federal campaign finance regulations. Of

This is the third installment of our blog series on Blueprints for Democracy, a new collection of solutions policymakers can implement to give everyone a greater say in their democracy. Read the full series here. When you think of corruption, you might envision the classic “backroom deal.” Voluminous cigar smoke rises in a low-lit room. A shady character hands a

In a major reform victory, concerted pressure has led Democrats in the Connecticut legislature to eliminate a proposed suspension of the state’s landmark public financing system. The proposal, which would have shaved $11.7 million off of the state’s budget by cutting the program’s funding for the 2016 election, came under fire from reform groups and legislators inside the state and

This is the second installment of our blog series on Blueprints for Democracy, a new collection of solutions policymakers can implement to give everyone a greater say in their democracy. Read the full series here. In the last Blueprints for Democracy entry, we discussed the various types of citizen funding systems. Here’s how cities and states are utilizing those different

Over the coming weeks, we’ll be highlighting policies from the Blueprints for Democracy, a new collection of solutions policymakers can implement to give everyone a greater say in their democracy. Read the full series here. Citizen funding programs, known elsewhere as public financing, offer a proven and effective means of empowering the general public to participate in the democratic process.