YouStreet.org brings added focus and activism to clean elections movement

All Things Reform is pleased to interview Matt Stempeck of You Street, a new campaign of Americans for Campaign Reform. You Street's sole purpose is to make voluntary public funding of all federal elections the law of the land. It has structured its web site as a social network to encourage participation from its grassroots members across the country.

We presented Matt, who is You Street's Internet and New Media Director, with several questions about their new web site and political campaign.

ATR: Congratulations on your exciting new venture for public financing of elections! You clearly have made a point of having participation from your members. Would you say it is primarily a 'social network'? I understand you have teamed up with Ning in providing this feature.

Matt S.: Thank you! Our team has worked very hard on the rollout of our new You Street initiative. We hope it's a powerful reminder that we need you -- the American public -- to push for voluntary public funding of all federal elections. Every dinner table issue, such as the mortgage crisis in our banking system, the deregulation of Wall Street, the millions of Americans without healthcare, or stalled environmental legislation, can be traced to the influence of big money contributors on our leaders in Congress. It's our goals to make sure that the American people's interests come before the special interests. Our members are dedicated to public financing. They follow the news closely and they have strong opinions about the role of money in politics. As a small organization working to bring very significant change to our nation's political system, we're committed to encouraging our members to work with us and with each other. To be successful, we're going to need many more citizens' voices joining the cause, and we're going to need collective energy and resources. On You Street, our members can get to know each other, discuss the issues, organize and really run with any ideas they have. Of course, we know there are a number of other social networks out there and we don't expect our members to interact only on our site. To this end, we're reaching out to our members--and importantly, their friends--on the social networking sites they already use. We have a basic presence on Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Twitter, and are eager to expand our role in those communities. We've seen a lot of interest on Facebook (http://apps.facebook.com/causes/153945?m=81dec08c&recruiter_id=2969) and Twitter (http://twitter.com/youstreeters) so far, and we're excited to grow the movement in this way. We're looking at very possible way to rally the many voices we need for change.

ATR: What are the primary opportunities for your site users to get active?

Matt S.: We've tried to make our site not only a hub of information about public financing, but also a place where folks can contribute in meaningful ways. We make it easy to spread the word about public financing. In our "You Can" section (http://youstreet.org/you_can) the focus is online action you can take for offline change. There are easy but powerful tools to write your Senators and Representatives, send a message to President-elect Obama, recruit friends, and support the movement. We're also working on additional features, such as the ability to submit a blog post and organize local events, such as a film screening. In our Ning community (http://community.youstreet.org/), we make it easy to connect with other You Street members. We have a forum for discussion as well as a section to upload photos. We've just opened the site to members, but we hope to see some great connections being made (and fun being had).

ATR: You already feature several 'groups' that members can join on your site. What do you hope to accomplish with them?

Matt S.: We've set up a few groups, including interest areas like energy policy and education, as well as state chapters, like Maine and California, where people can connect with other members who share an interest or home state. You can see all of the groups at http://youstreet.ning.com/groups). Any member can create a new group (at http://youstreet.ning.com/groups/group/new) and recruit members to it, which we heartily encourage. We hope to enable You Street members to connect with each other and discuss things that interest them, whether it be public financing or something completely unrelated. We're just getting started, but as you can see in our Energy Policy group there's already been some interesting discussion: http://youstreet.ning.com/group/energypolicy.

ATR: Public financing is a hot political topic, as both Barack Obama and John McCain have been advocates. With a new Obama administration and a Democratic congress, what are your hopes for the next two years?

Matt S.: It has been an exciting year for public financing. In the backlash that followed Obama's decision to opt out of public financing in the general election, the press kind of missed the fact that the reform community and campaign finance experts knew going into this election cycle that the current system was in dire need of an update, as the allocated amounts hadn't been adjusted for the modern costs of running a Presidential campaign. That's why we--and then-Senator Obama--endorsed the Presidential Public Funding Act (http://youstreet.org/legislation#prez) to update this system. Whether or not Obama went back on his pledge at the time is between the voter and the candidate, but the fact remains that we need to revitalize our system of Presidential public financing. We're looking forward to 2009 as an unprecedented opportunity to promote public financing of congressional elections as well as the much-needed update to Presidential public financing. President-elect Obama is indeed an advocate, having been an original cosponsor of both the Fair Elections Now Act and the Presidential Public Funding Act. You can watch a video of Obama explaining the benefits of the Fair Elections Now Act at http://youstreet.org/obama. We're also fortunate that Obama is close to Senator Dick Durbin, the lead co-sponsor of the bill along with Senator Arlen Specter. Senator McCain has also been a longtime advocate of campaign finance reform. It's worth noting that Senator McCain represents Arizona, which was one of the first states to enact statewide public financing. In fact, in the 2008 election, two thirds of all state office candidates in Arizona opted in to the voluntary public financing system (http://youstreet.org/states#arizona). Former Arizona Governor and incoming Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano was elected using public financing and is a major advocate of the system (see http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/money_and_politics_the_good_the_bad_and_the_ugly/). So Senator McCain has seen public financing work in his own backyard. He hasn't signed on as a cosponsor to the Fair Elections Now Act yet (http://youstreet.org/legislation#fena), but we sure encourage him retake his mantle of reform in the Senate. Public financing is going to remain a hot political topic even now that the election is over. Almost every major crisis we face is related in some way to where Congress gets its money. For example, our current financial crisis has its roots in the deregulation of Wall Street, which was achieved with the help of heavy amounts of targeted campaign contributions by Wall Street heavyweights. Wall Street gave ten times more money to the Representatives serving on the committees that oversee their business than they give to the rest of the House. These are smart investors and they knew what they're doing when they invested in our Congress. You can learn more in our recent Policy Paper, Wall Street Money In Politics (http://youstreet.org/press#policy-papers). And that's just one example.

ATR: There are other organizations deeply involved with this issue, including Public Campaign, Change Congress and Public Citizen. How may You Street contribute to the overall movement for public financing of elections?

Matt S.: We are fortunate to be one of several groups working for this important reform. Along with those you listed, Common Cause, the Brennan Center, and a number of other groups are also actively working to fix our system. Right now, for instance, we're working together to vote for "Citizens' funding of the nation's elections" (http://www.change.org/ideas/view/citizens_funding_of_the_nations_elections) at Change.org's Ideas contest (http://www.change.org/ideas). Lawrence Lessig, Founder of Change Congress, submitted the idea and we're working together to vote it up and raise awareness of this important proposal. If we can collectively marshall enough votes for the idea, it will be presented to the Obama Administration on Inauguration Day. We may be unique among our colleagues in that we are single-mindedly dedicated to public funding of federal elections. It's been our sole mission since the organization was started in 2003. It's a real passion for all of us involved.


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