San Diego Neighborhoods for Clean Elections

Lastest News

Neighborhoods for Clean Elections

October 10, 2011 - Clean Elections Campaign

No go for 2012!
After much soul searching, we have decided that we do not have enough resources to get a clean elections initiative on the 2012 ballot! We have run this campaign with a small group of activists and we have not been successful in expanding our team. And now our original working group is worn out!

If you know of anyone who has the time and energy or a group which has the resources to get the required 90,000 signatures to qualify a clean elections initiative for the 2012 election, please let me know and we can reconsider.

We have been successful with town council endorsements!
We have been successful during this past year in getting town council and neighborhood council endorsements and we now have 12! All of them are listed on our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org.

We are restarting our weekly phone bank!
We do have the volunteers to restart our weekly, Wednesday night phone bank and if you would like to volunteer, please give me a call. We will be calling our 500+ clean elections supporters to see if they are still with us, we will work to raise money and we will continue our neighborhood outreach.

John Hartley: Coordinator - Neighborhoods for Clean Elections
619-299-8870

July 2011 - Clean Elections Campaign Update

First meeting of 100 club
The first meeting of the 100 club will be this Sunday, July 10 at 4pm in Balboa Park at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Laurel. Come join us! For more information, contact Denise Sellers at 858-380-6916.

We need to get serious about raising money!
We have been very successful at growing our 100 club membership and in building town council support for our clean elections initiative. With only $9,349.85 in the bank, we now have to get serious about raising money to help us qualify our clean elections initiative in 2012. We are asking everyone to contribute financially through our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org. Go to the "Contribute" tab and contribute. We are urging clean elections supporters to sign-up to contribute $10 to $20 per month automatically through your credit card. The process is easy to do. I have been contributing an automatic contribution of $10 from my credit card, every month for the past two years to a local group. And I can say that one does not even notice the monthly deduction. Give John Hartley a call if you have any questions at 619-299-8870.

100 club membership at 505!
Thanks to those who have worked to educate and enroll clean elections supporters into our 100 club! 100 club members commit to carry our petition, starting in January 2012, and ask those they talk to, in their daily activities, to sign the clean elections initiative. We will be having education training in the future to help you to enroll voters to sign the initiative. We need more volunteers! Can you enroll a friend or neighbor or family member? If so, please contact John Hartley with the names and contact information.

9 town council endorsements!
We now have 9 town council endorsements! (some go by other names) of the San Diego Clean Elections Initiative. They are the Linda Vista Town Council, Rancho Penasquitos Town Council, La Jolla Town Council, City Heights Town Council, Ocean Beach Town Council, Mission Beach Town Council, Broadway Heights Community Council, Emerald Hills Neighborhood Council and the Rosemont Neighborhood Council. Great work by our neighborhood outreach team! If you would like to help with this effort, give John Hartley a call.

Wednesday Phone Bank restarted - Volunteers Needed!
After a summer break, we are restarting our weekly, Wednesday night phone bank starting at 6pm plus every Wednesday night. We need volunteers. Call John Hartley to volunteer.

And a word on the recent Supreme Court decision on the Arizona Clean Elections Law
We are in good shape. Our San Diego Clean Elections Initiative never included a matching funds provision whereby clean elections candidates get extra funding if outspent.

We wrote our initiative to give clean elections candidates, who qualify for clean money, all the funding that the initiative provides once they qualify.

The matching funds trigger had a negative impact which is why we did not include it. It meant that the traditional candidate could spend a lot of money at the last week or so leaving the clean candidate little time to use the extra, matching funding.

The negative impact of providing the full amount of funding to a clean candidate without the matching funds provision means that we will have to defend the higher amount of public funding in our campaign to get the initiative approved by the voters. So be it!

Here is an analysis of the Supreme Court's Decision by Public Citizen
June 27, 2011
U.S. Supreme Court Again Sides With Big Money in Politics; But Public Financing of Elections Remains Firmly Intact Statement of Craig Holman, Government Affairs Lobbyist, Public Citizen In yet another disappointing decision by a slim majority of the U.S. Supreme Court, the justices have invalidated the “trigger provision” of Arizona’s campaign finance law. The trigger provision provides qualified candidates with additional public funds to match excessive spending by wealthy opponents. While Public Citizen is disappointed with the ruling in Arizona’s Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, we are heartened by the fact that the court did not attack the concept of public financing of elections. Those who brought the case against Arizona’s public financing program had hoped the Supreme Court would invalidate public financing itself, but the justices refused. That means public financing programs – without a trigger threshold – remain firmly intact. The Fair Elections Now Act, legislation that would enhance small contributions with a robust public financing matching program in federal elections, is now the model for reducing the potentially corrupting influence of big money in politics. We heartily endorse this model and again express our appreciation to its key sponsors, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Reps. John Larson (D-Conn.) and Walter Jones (R-N.C.).

And lastly, you can call John Hartley, Campaign Coordinator, at 619-299-8870
If you have any questions or suggestions!

April 2011 - Clean Elections Campaign Update

Hi Everyone - Just a short update on our campaign.

First of all a reminder, we are working to put a clean elections initiative on the 2012 November ballot for the City of San Diego.

Our 100 club now stands at 444. Our goal is 1,000 clean elections supporters who are volunteering to carry a petition starting in January 2012. If you can recruit a friend, or neighbor to join our 100 club, please let us know.

We are also building our list of endorsements. We now have four town councils who have endorsed the San Diego Clean Elections Initiative: The Linda Vista Town Council, the Broadway Heights Community Council, the Rancho Penasquitos Town Council and now the Ocean Beach Town Council. If you are a town council or community association member and are willing to help us gain your group's endorsement, please let us know.

Would you like to do more than wait for 2012? If you would like to join our campaign and help us in any way, including community outreach, 100 club recruitment and fundraising, please let us know.

Do you want to know more about clean elections around the nation? Go to the Public Campaign web page:http://www.publicampaign.org/. Public campaign is the national leader for clean elections and the best source for clean elections news around the U.S.

John Hartley: 619-299-8870
Campaign Coordinator

February 2011

Hi Everyone - We need volunteers! We need volunteers to help call clean elections supporters at our weekly phone bank. We need volunteers to go into the community and speak to groups. And we need people to help us with fundraising. We need volunteers! How would you like to help?

With less than a year to go before we start collecting signatures, we need help to outreach and build support. If you can help, please e mail John Hartley in response to this message or call him at 619-299-8870.

We now have 272 members in our 100 club and our goal is 1,000! 100 club members are clean elections supporters who are willing to carry a petition for clean elections starting in January 2012 and to ask those who they talk to during their normal daily activities to sign the clean elections petition. Share your support for clean elections with your friends and family and enroll them into our 100 club. Then send their name, phone number, mailing address and e mail address to me.

Have you visited our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org? On the front page, we have our petition which you can print, a list of endorsements and a DVD narrated by Bill Moyers, "Road to Clean Elections." We urge everyone to view the video. Invite your friends to watch the video.

And of course, we need to raise funds to help qualify our initiative. If you can contribute, again go to our web page and click on the contribution tab. All financial support is deeply appreciated.

And finally, to check on the status of clean elections in other areas through their web pages, also go to our web page and click onto links.

John Hartley - Coordinator - Neighborhoods for Clean Elections

January 2011

Hi Everyone! - The campaign took a break over the holidays but we are back for the New Year! Our goal is to launch our clean elections initiative drive in January 2012. And we now have one year to build up enough support to be successful!

Our Goal is 1,000!
Our goal is to recruit 1,000 volunteers who will help get a clean elections initiative on the ballot by carrying a qualifying petition around with them starting in January 2012 and asking people they know and talk to during their day, to sign the petition.

Can you help us recruit?
Right now we have 240 clean elections supporters, like yourself, who have volunteered to be a member of our 100 club. But as you can see, we need many more.

You can help in two ways

You can enroll a friend, family member or neighbor to join you and our campaign.¹

And second, you can join our steering committee and help recruit volunteers through actions like speaking to groups or hosting coffees.²

¹If you recruit someone individually, please email to me their name, phone number, email address and mailing address and we will stay in touch with them.

²If you would like to join our steering committee, please email me or call me personally at 619-299-8870.

Check out our web page
If you haven’t done so, we invite you to visit our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org. where you can watch the inspirational DVD located on the front page entitled, “Road to Clean Elections” narrated by Bill Moyers. This DVD is only 12 minutes long and we urge everyone to watch it. You can also download our initiative, which was developed with help from Common Cause and the Sierra Club, and is located on the front page, see a little history of our campaign and make a financial contribution.

Do you want more on clean elections?
The national organization working for clean elections is Public Campaign. Public Campaign promotes clean elections in all parts of the nation. Its web page is www.publicampaign.org. Check out this web page if you want to know what is happening throughout the U.S. in the struggle to battle the attack of big money on our political democracy through clean elections.

That’s all for today folks!
Thanks again for your support. If you have any questions or suggestions, please give me a call at 619/299-8870.

John Hartley, Coordinator - Neighborhoods for Clean Elections

Clean Elections Campaign Update
November 9, 2010

Hi Everyone - Thanks again for your support for the 2012 clean elections campaign for the city of San Diego. This will be a short message sharing a few thoughts.

First, a reminder that we are working to put a citizen, clean elections initiative on the November, 2012 ballot. We will start collecting signatures in January 2012.
- - - The initiative, created with the help of Common Cause, is available on the front page of our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org. Also available on the front page is a short, 14 minute video narrated by Bill Moyers, entitled, "The Road to Clean Elections." We recommend that you take the time to watch this video. It is not only inspirational but it shows the dramatic impact clean elections has made in the states of Arizona and Maine since they initiated clean elections in 2000. - - - We need to build a large, dedicated team of clean elections supporters who will be willing to carry a petition in their daily activities starting in January 2012. If you would like to help, please contact me at 619-299-8870 or at hartley2k@aol.com If you have a question or suggestion, let us know.

Thanks again,
John Hartley
Coordinator: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections

Clean Elections Campaign Update
October

Hi Everyone - We had great progress in recruiting for our 100 club this past month. We are now up to 171 volunteers who have signed up to carry a petition for the Clean Elections citizens initiative, starting in January 2012.

Our overall goal is to build a 500 team for our 100 club so we have a little work to do. If you can help, please contact John Hartley at 619-299-8870 or hartley2k@aol.com.

We now have the Bill Moyers DVD, "Road to Clean Elections" on the front page of our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org. It is a powerful 14 minute DVD. Check it out.

We are now expanding our outreach to groups in the city. If you would like to help or join us, give John Hartley a call. This would be good training for anyone who wants to master public speaking and "I will share some of my secrets of public speaking with you."

We still need to raise money for our campaign. There is no limit to how much you can contribute. Just go to our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org and click on the Contribute tab on the left side of the front page and follow your preference. You can start a monthly ongoing contribution or use your credit card or just find the address to mail in your check. All help is appreciated.

And lastly, would you like to help get the endorsement of the town council or community association in your neighborhood? We have an outreach committee working on this important need. Again, call John Hartley for more information.

John Hartley
Coordinator: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections
619-299-8870

Clean Elections Campaign Update
September

Hi Everyone - I hope everyone is enjoying their summer! Neighborhoods for Clean Elections has created a new club and I would like to invite you to join! It is called the 100 club!

As you might know, our goal is to put our clean elections initiative on the November 2012 general ballot. This will be a presidential election with the greatest voter turnout which will help us pass our clean elections initiative.

In order to place our initiative on the November 2012 ballot, we will have to turn in our signatures in June 2012 and we can start getting voter signatures in January 2012.

We are now creating a team of volunteers who would be willing to start carrying a clean voter petition around with them during their daily activities starting in January 2012, and when appropriate, ask people they know whom they come into contact with, to sign the petition. I've done this before. I found it to be fun and "everyone you know will sign the petition." This is what I found.

So, we are asking you, a clean elections supporter, to sign up now to be a member of this team which we are calling the 100 Club. We are asking volunteers to make a commitment of getting 100 signatures, as a goal, but we know that some will get 0, some will get 20 and some will get 200 signatures! Our goal is to recruit 500 volunteers for the 100 Club and we already have around 100. January 2012 is more than a year and a half away so we will stay in touch via e mail with an occasional message. Of course, we will increase the contact when we get close to 2012. Someone asked me why we are starting so soon to recruit? The answer is, of course, that if we wait until 2012, it will be too late! Recruitment takes time.

And we still need to raise more money. If you can contribute, whether it is a large contribution or small, go to our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org, go to the front page tab, contribution, to contribute. And thanks for your financial help!

And we could use more volunteers on our weekly, Wednesday night phone bank. We call every Wednesday, from 6pm on to about 8pm. Our phone bank is in Larry Remer,s conference room at his office at 3609 Fourth Avenue in Hillcrest.

To join the 100 club or the weekly phone bank or if you just have a question or suggestion, contact the campaign coordinator, John Hartley, at 619-299-8870 or hartley2k@aol.com

If you no longer wish to get messages, from the Clean Elections Campaign, please communicate so in response to this message.

August Update

Hi Everyone - Our July break is over and we are back to building support for our 2012 Clean Elections campaign. As you know, in order to create a successful campaign we need to build support. Here are some of the ways we are doing that.

Neighborhood Organizing

One of our biggest goals is to build neighborhood support. We have created a committee to organize neighborhood support and our next meeting will be on Friday, August 20 at 6pm. We are interested in building support in all neighborhoods and we encourage you to help in your neighborhood. If you would like to help, call John Hartley at 619-299-8870 for more information and for the location of the August 20 meeting.

The One Hundred Club

We will need to get around 90,000 signatures to get our Clean Elections Initiative on the ballot. We plan to organize a vigorous weekend, volunteer effort but we have come up with a plan to recruit volunteers who are willing to "carry" a petition to get signatures from friends, family, neighbors and group members of organizations they belong to. We are calling this The One Hundred Club because we are asking volunteers to work towards getting 100 signatures. This can be a powerful way to get our clean elections initiative on the ballot. If we can recruit 500 volunteers who each get 100 signatures, we would get 50,000 or more than half our requirement through this effort. And by the way, as someone who has done this in the past, it is a fun way to get signatures! To join The One Hundred Club contact John Hartley at 619-299-8870 or hartley2k@aol.com.

We still need to raise money!

As of August 1, we have raised $8,389.82 for the clean elections campaign. Thanks to all who have sent in their checks or those who helped through a credit card or through Pay Pal. But we need to raise much, much more. The easiest way to contribute is to go to our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org and to use the contribution tab. By the way, there is no upper limit. Those of you who have already contributed, can send in more! Again, thanks for your help!

Phone Bank

We have restarted our Wednesday night phone bank after taking the month of July off. We start at 6 PM and phone to 8 PM. Volunteers are welcomed. The location is at 3609 Fourth Avenue in Hillcrest. For more information, contact John Hartley.

General Meeting

We have setup the third Wednesday of August at PM for a general meeting for those of you who might want to learn more about clean elections or our campaign. This is the time to bring questions. The location will be 3609 Fourth Avenue in Hillcrest.

Take me off your list

I added this paragraph for anyone who does not want to continue getting communication from Neighborhoods for Clean Elections. Just contact John Hartley at hartley2k@aol.com or 619-299-8870 and let us know that you do not want contact from us. You can also use this contact for suggestions and questions about clean elections or our campaign. John Hartley - Coordinator Neighborhoods for Clean Elections.

July Update

First of all, Thanks

Thanks to all who worked hard on the Prop 15 clean elections effort. It's not easy to lose but we can always learn for the future. I think the low voter turnout doomed Prop 15. Our goal is to put the San Diego Clean Elections initiative on the November 2012 general election. This will be a presidential election with the best possible turnout. But we need to use the next one and a half years in building support. We invite all those who worked on Prop 15 to join us for the San Diego City effort. Give me a call.

Thanks again!

Thanks to our phone bank team. They have done a great job and we are taking a break in July. We will begin anew in August. If you would like to join us, give me a call.

And thanks to our contributors!

As of June 30, we have $7,888 in funds. Thanks to all who have contributed! And by the way, you can always contribute again. There is no upper limit and we will need all the funds we can raise. To contribute, go to our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org and select the contribution tab on the left column on the front page.

Would you like to help organize in your own neighborhood?

We have started an effort to organize support for clean elections in our own individual neighborhoods. Would you like to help organize support in your neighborhood? If so, you could really help make a difference. Give me a call.

Anyone interested in doing research?

Would you like to help our campaign with research? If so, we need your help. Give me a call.

John Hartley - Coordinator
Neighborhoods for Clean Elections
619-299-8870

June 2010

Vote for Prop 15 on the June Primary

As you know, the California Fair Elections Initiative (Prop 15) will repeal the ban on public financing in California and establish a state-wide pilot program for public financing of California Secretary of State campaigns.

Polling on Prop 15 is on our side. But the lobbyists opposing Prop 15 are misrepresenting the facts to try to kill it. So, getting the word out to vote YES is key to passing Prop 15.

There is little time until Election Day and we could really use your help in getting the word out about the importance of voting Yes on Prop 15.

The most effective way to persuade voters is through personal conversations.

Can you help by phone banking from your home?

The YES on Prop 15 Campaign has a convenient website PLUS phone banking locations across the state. So you can choose a phone bank location close to you or make calls from your home at www.YesOnProp15.org/phonebanks

Letters to the Editor Needed

We had a big win this past Friday, May 28, when the San Diego Union/Tribune printed a letter in support of clean elections by Steve Howard. We are now trying to create a deluge of letters to the U/T in support of Steve's letter and his support of clean elections. Would you be willing to write a letter? With e mail, it is very easy and the more letters we can generate in support of the letter written by Steve Howard in support of clean elections, the more letters the Union/Tribune will publish. If you can send in a letter, please refer to Steve's letter which is included below in your letter. Following Steve's letter are directions on how to submit letters to the Union/Tribune. Thanks again for your help. If you have any questions, please contact John Hartley at 619-299-8870 or hartley2k@aol.com

5/28/10
San Diego Union/Tribune
Letters to the Editor

“Clean Elections” in San Diego

Candidates for office in San Diego must raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to run a competitive campaign. This leads to larger contributions from the wealthy and from special interests, which inevitably leads to increased influence by these big contributors. The result is council members paying less attention to ordinary citizens and their neighborhood concerns.

A system called Clean Elections has overcome these problems and allowed candidates to spend their time communicating with voters instead of continuously raising money. The system allows candidates to collect a minimum number of donations from registered voters to show that they have some public support. Candidates who have the required support receive public funding and may not raise any other funds. Candidates who choose not to accept public support may raise and spend as much as they like, but the public knows that they will owe their contributors big favors. Arizona and Maine have been using Clean Elections since 2000 and most candidates have chosen to run clean campaigns.

Steve Howard
San Diego

How to submit a letter to the editor of the Union/Tribune

To be considered for publication, a letter must include a daytime phone number and, if faxed or mailed, be signed. E-mail it to letters@uniontrib.com, or fax it to (619) 260-5081. You can also send it to Letters Editor, The San Diego Union-Tribune, P.O. Box 120191, San Diego, CA 92112-0191.
Because of the number of letters we receive, and to allow as many readers as possible to be published, it is the policy of the Union-Tribune to publish no more than one letter from the same author within 30 days. Letters may be edited, for length and clarity. It is also our policy to publish letters supporting or opposing a particular issue in a ratio reflecting the number received on each side. For example, if we receive three times the number of letters supporting Side A than Side B, we’ll publish three times more letters supporting Side A. Letters submitted may be used in print or in digital form in any publication or services offered by The San Diego Union-Tribune, LLC.

Misc. Updates

Phone Bank - We have a great phone bank on Wednesday nights but we could squeeze in another volunteer. If you want to help, call John Hartley at 619-299-8870

Fundraising - We are making steady progress. We now have $6,000 in the bank but we need to raise a lot more to succeed. Please consider contributing to our clean elections campaign. You can now go to our web page at sdcleanelections.org to contribute.
General Meeting - We will be showing the video, “Road to Clean Elections” narrated by Bill Moyers, at our June general meeting. All are invited to attend. Our general meeting will be on Wednesday, June 16 at 7pm in Larry Remer's conference room located at 3609 Fourth Avenue in Hillcrest.

Do you have a question or suggestion?

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the clean elections campaign, please contact the campaign coordinator, John Hartley, at 619-299-8870 or hartley2k@aol.com

May 2010

Rally for the statewide Prop 15

The San Diego group of Proposition 15 supporters will have a rally at the San Diego Registrar of Voters on Friday, May 7 from 2-3PM and all clean elections supporters are encouraged to attend. Assembly Member Lori Saldana will be joined by local leaders and clean elections supporters.

Prop 15 is the statewide ballot measure which would create a clean elections pilot for the office of Secretary of State position. The Registrar of Voters is located at the intersection of Ruffin Road and Clairemont Mesa Blvd, just west of Highway 15. For more information on the Prop 15 campaign, call Common Cause organizer Jeanne Brown at 619-857-1807.

You can now contribute from our web page

We just setup a contribution page on the front page of our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org where you can financially contribute to the clean elections campaign through PayPal or a one time contribution off your credit card. Or you can just write a check out to Neighborhoods for Clean Elections and mail it to: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections, P.O. Box 16066, San Diego, CA 92176.

Why do we need to raise money?

We will need to gather 90,000 signatures in order to qualify a clean elections initiative on the November 2012 ballot. We realize that if we are to be successful, that we will need to raise enough money cover all the costs of the campaign including paying for signatures if we cannot get enough through our volunteers. So, please contribute what you can when you can!

Phone bank still up and working

Our Wednesday night phone bank is working well with a small group of dedicated volunteers. Every Wednesday, from 6pm to 8pm, we are calling past supporters of clean elections to see if they are still with us and if they can help us out. We are phoning from Larry Remer's office at 3609 Fourth Avenue in Hillcrest. If you can phone, just come down with your cell phone. We only have one phone at the office. If you have any questions, give John Hartley a call at 619-299-8870.

Arizona clean elections has a new web page

Arizona's clean elections has been under constant attack since its start in 2000. Check out their new web page at www.savecleanelections.com

Can you write a letter to the editor on the need for clean elections?

Letters to the editor are an important way to influence public opinion. Can you write one today? With e mail, it is easy and only a click a way.

How to submit a letter to the editor of the Union/Tribune

To be considered for publication, a letter must include a daytime phone number and, if faxed or mailed, be signed. E-mail it to letters@uniontrib.com, or fax it to (619) 260-5081. You can also send it to Letters Editor, The San Diego Union-Tribune, P.O. Box 120191, San Diego, CA 92112-0191. Because of the number of letters we receive, and to allow as many readers as possible to be published, it is the policy of the Union-Tribune to publish no more than one letter from the same author within 30 days. Letters may be edited, for length and clarity. It is also our policy to publish letters supporting or opposing a particular issue in a ratio reflecting the number received on each side. For example, if we receive three times the number of letters supporting Side A than Side B, we'll publish three times more letters supporting Side A. Letters submitted may be used in print or in digital form in any publication or services offered by The San Diego Union-Tribune, LLC.

I hope this message finds you in a good place. If you have any questions or suggestions, contact the clean elections campaign coordinator John Hartley at 619-299-8870 or hartley2k@aol.com

April 2010

Hi Everyone - How are you? We are highlighting some special needs this month. We need more clean elections speakers and research volunteers! We would like to expand our outreach to groups and we need to research clean elections around the U.S. If you would like to help in either category, call John Hartley at 619-299-8870.

Congratulations to Jeanne Brown and the League of Women Voters They created a great luncheon on clean elections in March! It was a great success. --- And don't forget Proposition 15, the statewide clean elections measure covering the Secretary of State position, which will be on the June ballot. If you would like to work on this important effort or want more information on it, call Jeanne Brown at 619-857-1807.

Phone bank continues on Wednesday nights

We continue to have a great group of phone bank volunteers calling clean elections supporters on Wednesday nights. If you would like to join us, we would love to have you. Just come in after 6pm to our 3609 Fourth Avenue phone bank in Hillcrest (just north of the intersection of Fourth Avenue and Brooks Avenue and on the East side of Fourth Avenue) If you have a cell phone, bring it! Call John Hartley at 619-299-8870 if you have any questions.

Bill Moyers here in San Diego on Wednesday, April 21?

Yes, Bill Moyers will be joining us on the Road to Clean Elections video at our general meeting at 7pm on Wednesday, April 21 at our phone bank location. (See location above) . If you have never seen Bill Moyers talk about clean elections, you will enjoy the message. Come join us. And join us too if you have questions or just want to know what we are doing to get clean elections in San Diego.

Why do we need to raise money?

People ask us why we need to raise money to get a clean elections measure on the ballot. The truth is that the establishment has raised the bar in terms of the number of signatures needed to qualify ballot measures. We will need to get 90,000 signatures of registered voters from the city of San Diego in order to qualify our clean elections measure. We are planning a robust volunteer effort to get signatures but we will also have to raise money in ensure that we qualify our initiative! So please dig in and send in a check, big or small.

Where to send a contribution check

All contributions count. Make your checks out to: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections and mail to: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections, P.O. Box 16066, San Diego, CA 92176. For more information, call John Hartley, at 619-299-8870.

March 2010

Hi Everyone - Big news this month is the Clean Elections luncheon put on by the League of Women Voters on Wednesday, March 24 from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm. We encourage you to attend. Directions on how to reserve your place listed below.

Phone bank continues on Wednesday nights
We continue to call Clean Elections supporters every Wednesday night starting at 6pm from a conference room at 3609 Fourth Avenue in Hillcrest (just north of the intersection of Fourth Avenue and Brooks Avenue) We need volunteers. Come join us. If you have a question or need more information, call John Hartley at 619-299-8870. P.S. Bring your cell phone.

General Meeting setup for Third Wednesday
We will be hosting a general meeting, also at 3609 Fourth Avenue location, starting at 7pm on Wednesday, March 17. We will be showing “The Road to Clean Elections” narrated by Bill Moyers and answering any questions that folks might have. Come join us!

Please keep those contributions to the clean elections campaign coming!
We need to raise money to help us get our initiative on the ballot! Make checks out to: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections and mail to: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections, P.O. Box 16066, San Diego, CA 92176. For more information, call Neighborhoods for Clean Elections Coordinator, John Hartley, at 619-299-8870.

League of Women Voters of San Diego - Clean Elections Luncheon “Do Special Interests Now Own Our Elections?”
Speakers:

Ric Bainter, Founding director of the New Politics program at the National Civic League and current National Common Cause Board member.

Trent Lange, Chair of Californians for Fair Elections, the ballot committee that is leading the campaign for the California Fair Election Act on the June 2010 ballot, and board member of California Clean Money Campaign.

Simon Mayeski, Board member of California Common Cause and watchdog on the San Diego Ethics Commission for Common Cause.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Tom Ham’s Lighthouse Restaurant: located at 2150 Harbor Island Drive, 92101
Cost: $28 LWV members; $30 non-members

Directions to Tom Ham’s:
Harbor Dr. to the airport; turn left at Harbor Island Dr.; proceed two short blocks and veer right. Continue past hotels and marinas to the end of the island.
Parking is free.

Reservations must be received by Mar. 18, 2009
Mail check to LWVSD, 4901 Morena Blvd., # 104, San Diego 92117.
Questions: 858-483-8696

February 2010

Hi Everyone - The Supreme Court’s recent decision allowing corporations to spend unlimited funds on political campaigns makes our clean elections campaign all the more important. See the article below by local Diego political consultant, Larry Remer.

Phone bank moves to Wednesday nights

We have moved our clean elections phone bank to Wednesday nights starting this Wednesday, February 3. The location is still the same, 3609 Fourth Avenue in Hillcrest and we start at 6pm. Volunteers are always appreciated. Come join us! For more information, contact John Hartley.

We are targeting the 2012 general election

Just a reminder that our intention is to put a clean elections ballot measure on the 2012 general elections ballot for the city of San Diego. There is also a statewide ballot measure on this June primary which if it passes, will provide for a pilot clean elections process for the statewide, Secretary of State office. For more information on this effort, give Common Cause organizer, Jeanne Brown, a call at 619-857-1807.

Court Opens the Way for Influx of Corporate Big Money

The US Supreme Court’s unprecedented tilt towards “Big Money” politics has made the need for Clean Elections more urgent than ever. In late January, the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 margin, overturned more than 100 years of precedent by ruling that restrictions on campaign spending by corporations and labor unions is an unconstitutional violation of the 1st amendment. The Court’s decision overturned key provisions of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Law as well as other federal limits on special interest spending. In essence, the Court lifted virtually all restrictions on campaigning by corporations and unions. Some observers believe that this will open the floodgates to hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign spending in the upcoming midterm elections. President Obama criticized the Court’s ruling during his State of the Union Address and public interest groups from across the country have joined in a rising chorus of outrage. The ruling has given new life to Clean Elections efforts across the country. With a political system that places virtually no limits or restrictions on special interest money, Clean Elections style ordinances offer the only hope for ordinary citizens to make their voices heard.
Larry Remer, Political Consultant

Thanks again for your clean elections donations

Thanks again to those who have sent in checks for our campaign. We do need to raise money in order to successfully qualify and pass a clean elections initiative. If you have not done so, please consider making a contribution now. Make a check out to: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections and mail to: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections, P.O. Box 16066, San Diego, CA, 92176
John Hartley, Coordinator for Neighborhoods for Clean Elections
619-299-8870/hartley2k@aol.com

January 2010

Clean Elections Campaign

Hi Everyone - Happy New Year! 2010 will be a great year. You heard it from me! Our clean elections campaign will go into high gear with the new year! First, let me tell you about and invite you to some upcoming events.

Upcoming Events

This Saturday, January 9, from 11am to 1pm at the Mission Valley Branch Library located at 2123 Fenton Parkway in Mission Valley. This is a speakers/volunteers training session put on by Californians for Fair Elections. They are organizing support for the statewide clean elections ballot measure which will be on the June primary ballot. For more information, go to www.yesfairelections.org or call
310-397-0200.

Sunday, January 17, 10:30am - 11:30am at the First Unitarian/Universalist Church, 4190 Front St in Hillcrest. This is a meeting of the Clean Elections Task Force of the church and everyone is invited to attend. We will be planning activities for the new year.

Tuesday, January 19, 6:30pm at 3609 Fourth Avenue in Hillcrest. This is our first general meeting and everyone is invited to attend. We will also be sharing plans for the new year and, upon request, will show the video entitled, "Road to Clean Elections."

Phone Bank

Can you help us make calls to our supporters at our weekly phone bank? We will be phoning every Tuesday night from 6pm at 3609 Fourth Avenue. If you can help, come join us. For more information, contact John Hartley. This is a cell phone, phone bank so bring your cell phone. (we will have extras)

Thanks to those who have donated!

Thanks again to those of you who have donated to our clean elections campaign. We are an all volunteer group but we need to raise money to help qualify our Clean Elections Initiative for the 2012 ballot. More donations will be gratefully accepted. Please make checks out to: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections and mail to: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections, P.O. Box 16066, San Diego, CA 92176. Please include your phone number and e mail so we can contact you if we have any questions, and. by law, we need your occupation or profession and the name of your employer. If you are self-employed, we need the name of your entity and your position. If you are retired or a homemaker, please indicate that.

Thanks again!

Thanks again for your help and support for clean elections. We are on a long, tough journey to reform politics in the city of San Diego and to give our neighborhoods a Say at City Hall! If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact John Hartley.

John Hartley, Coordinator of Neighborhoods for Clean Elections
619/299-8870 - hartley2k@aol.com

Privacy Policy

Constituents
like to see legislators
who spend
more time working on issues.

Clean Elections has enabled
me to do that.

Maine Senate President
Beth Edmonds



Help Bring Clean Elections to San Diego	Lastest News Neighborhoods for Clean Elections October 10, 2011 - Clean Elections Campaign No go for 2012! After much soul searching, we have decided that we do not have enough resources to get a clean elections initiative on the 2012 ballot! We have run this campaign with a small group of activists and we have not been successful in expanding our team. And now our original working group is worn out! If you know of anyone who has the time and energy or a group which has the resources to get the required 90,000 signatures to qualify a clean elections initiative for the 2012 election, please let me know and we can reconsider. We have been successful with town council endorsements! We have been successful during this past year in getting town council and neighborhood council endorsements and we now have 12! All of them are listed on our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org. We are restarting our weekly phone bank! We do have the volunteers to restart our weekly, Wednesday night phone bank and if you would like to volunteer, please give me a call. We will be calling our 500+ clean elections supporters to see if they are still with us, we will work to raise money and we will continue our neighborhood outreach. John Hartley: Coordinator - Neighborhoods for Clean Elections 619-299-8870 July 2011 - Clean Elections Campaign Update First meeting of 100 club The first meeting of the 100 club will be this Sunday, July 10 at 4pm in Balboa Park at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and Laurel. Come join us! For more information, contact Denise Sellers at 858-380-6916. We need to get serious about raising money! We have been very successful at growing our 100 club membership and in building town council support for our clean elections initiative. With only $9,349.85 in the bank, we now have to get serious about raising money to help us qualify our clean elections initiative in 2012. We are asking everyone to contribute financially through our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org. Go to the "Contribute" tab and contribute. We are urging clean elections supporters to sign-up to contribute $10 to $20 per month automatically through your credit card. The process is easy to do. I have been contributing an automatic contribution of $10 from my credit card, every month for the past two years to a local group. And I can say that one does not even notice the monthly deduction. Give John Hartley a call if you have any questions at 619-299-8870. 100 club membership at 505! Thanks to those who have worked to educate and enroll clean elections supporters into our 100 club! 100 club members commit to carry our petition, starting in January 2012, and ask those they talk to, in their daily activities, to sign the clean elections initiative. We will be having education training in the future to help you to enroll voters to sign the initiative. We need more volunteers! Can you enroll a friend or neighbor or family member? If so, please contact John Hartley with the names and contact information. 9 town council endorsements! We now have 9 town council endorsements! (some go by other names) of the San Diego Clean Elections Initiative. They are the Linda Vista Town Council, Rancho Penasquitos Town Council, La Jolla Town Council, City Heights Town Council, Ocean Beach Town Council, Mission Beach Town Council, Broadway Heights Community Council, Emerald Hills Neighborhood Council and the Rosemont Neighborhood Council. Great work by our neighborhood outreach team! If you would like to help with this effort, give John Hartley a call. Wednesday Phone Bank restarted - Volunteers Needed! After a summer break, we are restarting our weekly, Wednesday night phone bank starting at 6pm plus every Wednesday night. We need volunteers. Call John Hartley to volunteer. And a word on the recent Supreme Court decision on the Arizona Clean Elections Law We are in good shape. Our San Diego Clean Elections Initiative never included a matching funds provision whereby clean elections candidates get extra funding if outspent. We wrote our initiative to give clean elections candidates, who qualify for clean money, all the funding that the initiative provides once they qualify. The matching funds trigger had a negative impact which is why we did not include it. It meant that the traditional candidate could spend a lot of money at the last week or so leaving the clean candidate little time to use the extra, matching funding. The negative impact of providing the full amount of funding to a clean candidate without the matching funds provision means that we will have to defend the higher amount of public funding in our campaign to get the initiative approved by the voters. So be it! Here is an analysis of the Supreme Court's Decision by Public Citizen June 27, 2011 U.S. Supreme Court Again Sides With Big Money in Politics; But Public Financing of Elections Remains Firmly Intact Statement of Craig Holman, Government Affairs Lobbyist, Public Citizen In yet another disappointing decision by a slim majority of the U.S. Supreme Court, the justices have invalidated the “trigger provision” of Arizona’s campaign finance law. The trigger provision provides qualified candidates with additional public funds to match excessive spending by wealthy opponents. While Public Citizen is disappointed with the ruling in Arizona’s Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club PAC v. Bennett, we are heartened by the fact that the court did not attack the concept of public financing of elections. Those who brought the case against Arizona’s public financing program had hoped the Supreme Court would invalidate public financing itself, but the justices refused. That means public financing programs – without a trigger threshold – remain firmly intact. The Fair Elections Now Act, legislation that would enhance small contributions with a robust public financing matching program in federal elections, is now the model for reducing the potentially corrupting influence of big money in politics. We heartily endorse this model and again express our appreciation to its key sponsors, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Reps. John Larson (D-Conn.) and Walter Jones (R-N.C.). And lastly, you can call John Hartley, Campaign Coordinator, at 619-299-8870 If you have any questions or suggestions! April 2011 - Clean Elections Campaign Update Hi Everyone - Just a short update on our campaign. First of all a reminder, we are working to put a clean elections initiative on the 2012 November ballot for the City of San Diego. Our 100 club now stands at 444. Our goal is 1,000 clean elections supporters who are volunteering to carry a petition starting in January 2012. If you can recruit a friend, or neighbor to join our 100 club, please let us know. We are also building our list of endorsements. We now have four town councils who have endorsed the San Diego Clean Elections Initiative: The Linda Vista Town Council, the Broadway Heights Community Council, the Rancho Penasquitos Town Council and now the Ocean Beach Town Council. If you are a town council or community association member and are willing to help us gain your group's endorsement, please let us know. Would you like to do more than wait for 2012? If you would like to join our campaign and help us in any way, including community outreach, 100 club recruitment and fundraising, please let us know. Do you want to know more about clean elections around the nation? Go to the Public Campaign web page:http://www.publicampaign.org/. Public campaign is the national leader for clean elections and the best source for clean elections news around the U.S. John Hartley: 619-299-8870 Campaign Coordinator February 2011 Hi Everyone - We need volunteers! We need volunteers to help call clean elections supporters at our weekly phone bank. We need volunteers to go into the community and speak to groups. And we need people to help us with fundraising. We need volunteers! How would you like to help? With less than a year to go before we start collecting signatures, we need help to outreach and build support. If you can help, please e mail John Hartley in response to this message or call him at 619-299-8870. We now have 272 members in our 100 club and our goal is 1,000! 100 club members are clean elections supporters who are willing to carry a petition for clean elections starting in January 2012 and to ask those who they talk to during their normal daily activities to sign the clean elections petition. Share your support for clean elections with your friends and family and enroll them into our 100 club. Then send their name, phone number, mailing address and e mail address to me. Have you visited our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org? On the front page, we have our petition which you can print, a list of endorsements and a DVD narrated by Bill Moyers, "Road to Clean Elections." We urge everyone to view the video. Invite your friends to watch the video. And of course, we need to raise funds to help qualify our initiative. If you can contribute, again go to our web page and click on the contribution tab. All financial support is deeply appreciated. And finally, to check on the status of clean elections in other areas through their web pages, also go to our web page and click onto links. John Hartley - Coordinator - Neighborhoods for Clean Elections January 2011 Hi Everyone! - The campaign took a break over the holidays but we are back for the New Year! Our goal is to launch our clean elections initiative drive in January 2012. And we now have one year to build up enough support to be successful! Our Goal is 1,000! Our goal is to recruit 1,000 volunteers who will help get a clean elections initiative on the ballot by carrying a qualifying petition around with them starting in January 2012 and asking people they know and talk to during their day, to sign the petition. Can you help us recruit? Right now we have 240 clean elections supporters, like yourself, who have volunteered to be a member of our 100 club. But as you can see, we need many more. You can help in two ways You can enroll a friend, family member or neighbor to join you and our campaign.¹ And second, you can join our steering committee and help recruit volunteers through actions like speaking to groups or hosting coffees.² ¹If you recruit someone individually, please email to me their name, phone number, email address and mailing address and we will stay in touch with them. ²If you would like to join our steering committee, please email me or call me personally at 619-299-8870. Check out our web page If you haven’t done so, we invite you to visit our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org. where you can watch the inspirational DVD located on the front page entitled, “Road to Clean Elections” narrated by Bill Moyers. This DVD is only 12 minutes long and we urge everyone to watch it. You can also download our initiative, which was developed with help from Common Cause and the Sierra Club, and is located on the front page, see a little history of our campaign and make a financial contribution. Do you want more on clean elections? The national organization working for clean elections is Public Campaign. Public Campaign promotes clean elections in all parts of the nation. Its web page is www.publicampaign.org. Check out this web page if you want to know what is happening throughout the U.S. in the struggle to battle the attack of big money on our political democracy through clean elections. That’s all for today folks! Thanks again for your support. If you have any questions or suggestions, please give me a call at 619/299-8870. John Hartley, Coordinator - Neighborhoods for Clean Elections Clean Elections Campaign Update November 9, 2010 Hi Everyone - Thanks again for your support for the 2012 clean elections campaign for the city of San Diego. This will be a short message sharing a few thoughts. First, a reminder that we are working to put a citizen, clean elections initiative on the November, 2012 ballot. We will start collecting signatures in January 2012. - - - The initiative, created with the help of Common Cause, is available on the front page of our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org. Also available on the front page is a short, 14 minute video narrated by Bill Moyers, entitled, "The Road to Clean Elections." We recommend that you take the time to watch this video. It is not only inspirational but it shows the dramatic impact clean elections has made in the states of Arizona and Maine since they initiated clean elections in 2000. - - - We need to build a large, dedicated team of clean elections supporters who will be willing to carry a petition in their daily activities starting in January 2012. If you would like to help, please contact me at 619-299-8870 or at hartley2k@aol.com If you have a question or suggestion, let us know. Thanks again, John Hartley Coordinator: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections Clean Elections Campaign Update October Hi Everyone - We had great progress in recruiting for our 100 club this past month. We are now up to 171 volunteers who have signed up to carry a petition for the Clean Elections citizens initiative, starting in January 2012. Our overall goal is to build a 500 team for our 100 club so we have a little work to do. If you can help, please contact John Hartley at 619-299-8870 or hartley2k@aol.com. We now have the Bill Moyers DVD, "Road to Clean Elections" on the front page of our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org. It is a powerful 14 minute DVD. Check it out. We are now expanding our outreach to groups in the city. If you would like to help or join us, give John Hartley a call. This would be good training for anyone who wants to master public speaking and "I will share some of my secrets of public speaking with you." We still need to raise money for our campaign. There is no limit to how much you can contribute. Just go to our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org and click on the Contribute tab on the left side of the front page and follow your preference. You can start a monthly ongoing contribution or use your credit card or just find the address to mail in your check. All help is appreciated. And lastly, would you like to help get the endorsement of the town council or community association in your neighborhood? We have an outreach committee working on this important need. Again, call John Hartley for more information. John Hartley Coordinator: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections 619-299-8870 Clean Elections Campaign Update September Hi Everyone - I hope everyone is enjoying their summer! Neighborhoods for Clean Elections has created a new club and I would like to invite you to join! It is called the 100 club! As you might know, our goal is to put our clean elections initiative on the November 2012 general ballot. This will be a presidential election with the greatest voter turnout which will help us pass our clean elections initiative. In order to place our initiative on the November 2012 ballot, we will have to turn in our signatures in June 2012 and we can start getting voter signatures in January 2012. We are now creating a team of volunteers who would be willing to start carrying a clean voter petition around with them during their daily activities starting in January 2012, and when appropriate, ask people they know whom they come into contact with, to sign the petition. I've done this before. I found it to be fun and "everyone you know will sign the petition." This is what I found. So, we are asking you, a clean elections supporter, to sign up now to be a member of this team which we are calling the 100 Club. We are asking volunteers to make a commitment of getting 100 signatures, as a goal, but we know that some will get 0, some will get 20 and some will get 200 signatures! Our goal is to recruit 500 volunteers for the 100 Club and we already have around 100. January 2012 is more than a year and a half away so we will stay in touch via e mail with an occasional message. Of course, we will increase the contact when we get close to 2012. Someone asked me why we are starting so soon to recruit? The answer is, of course, that if we wait until 2012, it will be too late! Recruitment takes time. And we still need to raise more money. If you can contribute, whether it is a large contribution or small, go to our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org, go to the front page tab, contribution, to contribute. And thanks for your financial help! And we could use more volunteers on our weekly, Wednesday night phone bank. We call every Wednesday, from 6pm on to about 8pm. Our phone bank is in Larry Remer,s conference room at his office at 3609 Fourth Avenue in Hillcrest. To join the 100 club or the weekly phone bank or if you just have a question or suggestion, contact the campaign coordinator, John Hartley, at 619-299-8870 or hartley2k@aol.com If you no longer wish to get messages, from the Clean Elections Campaign, please communicate so in response to this message. August Update Hi Everyone - Our July break is over and we are back to building support for our 2012 Clean Elections campaign. As you know, in order to create a successful campaign we need to build support. Here are some of the ways we are doing that. Neighborhood Organizing One of our biggest goals is to build neighborhood support. We have created a committee to organize neighborhood support and our next meeting will be on Friday, August 20 at 6pm. We are interested in building support in all neighborhoods and we encourage you to help in your neighborhood. If you would like to help, call John Hartley at 619-299-8870 for more information and for the location of the August 20 meeting. The One Hundred Club We will need to get around 90,000 signatures to get our Clean Elections Initiative on the ballot. We plan to organize a vigorous weekend, volunteer effort but we have come up with a plan to recruit volunteers who are willing to "carry" a petition to get signatures from friends, family, neighbors and group members of organizations they belong to. We are calling this The One Hundred Club because we are asking volunteers to work towards getting 100 signatures. This can be a powerful way to get our clean elections initiative on the ballot. If we can recruit 500 volunteers who each get 100 signatures, we would get 50,000 or more than half our requirement through this effort. And by the way, as someone who has done this in the past, it is a fun way to get signatures! To join The One Hundred Club contact John Hartley at 619-299-8870 or hartley2k@aol.com. We still need to raise money! As of August 1, we have raised $8,389.82 for the clean elections campaign. Thanks to all who have sent in their checks or those who helped through a credit card or through Pay Pal. But we need to raise much, much more. The easiest way to contribute is to go to our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org and to use the contribution tab. By the way, there is no upper limit. Those of you who have already contributed, can send in more! Again, thanks for your help! Phone Bank We have restarted our Wednesday night phone bank after taking the month of July off. We start at 6 PM and phone to 8 PM. Volunteers are welcomed. The location is at 3609 Fourth Avenue in Hillcrest. For more information, contact John Hartley. General Meeting We have setup the third Wednesday of August at PM for a general meeting for those of you who might want to learn more about clean elections or our campaign. This is the time to bring questions. The location will be 3609 Fourth Avenue in Hillcrest. Take me off your list I added this paragraph for anyone who does not want to continue getting communication from Neighborhoods for Clean Elections. Just contact John Hartley at hartley2k@aol.com or 619-299-8870 and let us know that you do not want contact from us. You can also use this contact for suggestions and questions about clean elections or our campaign. John Hartley - Coordinator Neighborhoods for Clean Elections. July Update First of all, Thanks Thanks to all who worked hard on the Prop 15 clean elections effort. It's not easy to lose but we can always learn for the future. I think the low voter turnout doomed Prop 15. Our goal is to put the San Diego Clean Elections initiative on the November 2012 general election. This will be a presidential election with the best possible turnout. But we need to use the next one and a half years in building support. We invite all those who worked on Prop 15 to join us for the San Diego City effort. Give me a call. Thanks again! Thanks to our phone bank team. They have done a great job and we are taking a break in July. We will begin anew in August. If you would like to join us, give me a call. And thanks to our contributors! As of June 30, we have $7,888 in funds. Thanks to all who have contributed! And by the way, you can always contribute again. There is no upper limit and we will need all the funds we can raise. To contribute, go to our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org and select the contribution tab on the left column on the front page. Would you like to help organize in your own neighborhood? We have started an effort to organize support for clean elections in our own individual neighborhoods. Would you like to help organize support in your neighborhood? If so, you could really help make a difference. Give me a call. Anyone interested in doing research? Would you like to help our campaign with research? If so, we need your help. Give me a call. John Hartley - Coordinator Neighborhoods for Clean Elections 619-299-8870 June 2010 Vote for Prop 15 on the June Primary As you know, the California Fair Elections Initiative (Prop 15) will repeal the ban on public financing in California and establish a state-wide pilot program for public financing of California Secretary of State campaigns. Polling on Prop 15 is on our side. But the lobbyists opposing Prop 15 are misrepresenting the facts to try to kill it. So, getting the word out to vote YES is key to passing Prop 15. There is little time until Election Day and we could really use your help in getting the word out about the importance of voting Yes on Prop 15. The most effective way to persuade voters is through personal conversations. Can you help by phone banking from your home? The YES on Prop 15 Campaign has a convenient website PLUS phone banking locations across the state. So you can choose a phone bank location close to you or make calls from your home at www.YesOnProp15.org/phonebanks Letters to the Editor Needed We had a big win this past Friday, May 28, when the San Diego Union/Tribune printed a letter in support of clean elections by Steve Howard. We are now trying to create a deluge of letters to the U/T in support of Steve's letter and his support of clean elections. Would you be willing to write a letter? With e mail, it is very easy and the more letters we can generate in support of the letter written by Steve Howard in support of clean elections, the more letters the Union/Tribune will publish. If you can send in a letter, please refer to Steve's letter which is included below in your letter. Following Steve's letter are directions on how to submit letters to the Union/Tribune. Thanks again for your help. If you have any questions, please contact John Hartley at 619-299-8870 or hartley2k@aol.com 5/28/10 San Diego Union/Tribune Letters to the Editor “Clean Elections” in San Diego Candidates for office in San Diego must raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to run a competitive campaign. This leads to larger contributions from the wealthy and from special interests, which inevitably leads to increased influence by these big contributors. The result is council members paying less attention to ordinary citizens and their neighborhood concerns. A system called Clean Elections has overcome these problems and allowed candidates to spend their time communicating with voters instead of continuously raising money. The system allows candidates to collect a minimum number of donations from registered voters to show that they have some public support. Candidates who have the required support receive public funding and may not raise any other funds. Candidates who choose not to accept public support may raise and spend as much as they like, but the public knows that they will owe their contributors big favors. Arizona and Maine have been using Clean Elections since 2000 and most candidates have chosen to run clean campaigns. Steve Howard San Diego How to submit a letter to the editor of the Union/Tribune To be considered for publication, a letter must include a daytime phone number and, if faxed or mailed, be signed. E-mail it to letters@uniontrib.com, or fax it to (619) 260-5081. You can also send it to Letters Editor, The San Diego Union-Tribune, P.O. Box 120191, San Diego, CA 92112-0191. Because of the number of letters we receive, and to allow as many readers as possible to be published, it is the policy of the Union-Tribune to publish no more than one letter from the same author within 30 days. Letters may be edited, for length and clarity. It is also our policy to publish letters supporting or opposing a particular issue in a ratio reflecting the number received on each side. For example, if we receive three times the number of letters supporting Side A than Side B, we’ll publish three times more letters supporting Side A. Letters submitted may be used in print or in digital form in any publication or services offered by The San Diego Union-Tribune, LLC. Misc. Updates Phone Bank - We have a great phone bank on Wednesday nights but we could squeeze in another volunteer. If you want to help, call John Hartley at 619-299-8870 Fundraising - We are making steady progress. We now have $6,000 in the bank but we need to raise a lot more to succeed. Please consider contributing to our clean elections campaign. You can now go to our web page at sdcleanelections.org to contribute. General Meeting - We will be showing the video, “Road to Clean Elections” narrated by Bill Moyers, at our June general meeting. All are invited to attend. Our general meeting will be on Wednesday, June 16 at 7pm in Larry Remer's conference room located at 3609 Fourth Avenue in Hillcrest. Do you have a question or suggestion? If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the clean elections campaign, please contact the campaign coordinator, John Hartley, at 619-299-8870 or hartley2k@aol.com May 2010 Rally for the statewide Prop 15 The San Diego group of Proposition 15 supporters will have a rally at the San Diego Registrar of Voters on Friday, May 7 from 2-3PM and all clean elections supporters are encouraged to attend. Assembly Member Lori Saldana will be joined by local leaders and clean elections supporters. Prop 15 is the statewide ballot measure which would create a clean elections pilot for the office of Secretary of State position. The Registrar of Voters is located at the intersection of Ruffin Road and Clairemont Mesa Blvd, just west of Highway 15. For more information on the Prop 15 campaign, call Common Cause organizer Jeanne Brown at 619-857-1807. You can now contribute from our web page We just setup a contribution page on the front page of our web page: www.sdcleanelections.org where you can financially contribute to the clean elections campaign through PayPal or a one time contribution off your credit card. Or you can just write a check out to Neighborhoods for Clean Elections and mail it to: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections, P.O. Box 16066, San Diego, CA 92176. Why do we need to raise money? We will need to gather 90,000 signatures in order to qualify a clean elections initiative on the November 2012 ballot. We realize that if we are to be successful, that we will need to raise enough money cover all the costs of the campaign including paying for signatures if we cannot get enough through our volunteers. So, please contribute what you can when you can! Phone bank still up and working Our Wednesday night phone bank is working well with a small group of dedicated volunteers. Every Wednesday, from 6pm to 8pm, we are calling past supporters of clean elections to see if they are still with us and if they can help us out. We are phoning from Larry Remer's office at 3609 Fourth Avenue in Hillcrest. If you can phone, just come down with your cell phone. We only have one phone at the office. If you have any questions, give John Hartley a call at 619-299-8870. Arizona clean elections has a new web page Arizona's clean elections has been under constant attack since its start in 2000. Check out their new web page at www.savecleanelections.com Can you write a letter to the editor on the need for clean elections? Letters to the editor are an important way to influence public opinion. Can you write one today? With e mail, it is easy and only a click a way. How to submit a letter to the editor of the Union/Tribune To be considered for publication, a letter must include a daytime phone number and, if faxed or mailed, be signed. E-mail it to letters@uniontrib.com, or fax it to (619) 260-5081. You can also send it to Letters Editor, The San Diego Union-Tribune, P.O. Box 120191, San Diego, CA 92112-0191. Because of the number of letters we receive, and to allow as many readers as possible to be published, it is the policy of the Union-Tribune to publish no more than one letter from the same author within 30 days. Letters may be edited, for length and clarity. It is also our policy to publish letters supporting or opposing a particular issue in a ratio reflecting the number received on each side. For example, if we receive three times the number of letters supporting Side A than Side B, we'll publish three times more letters supporting Side A. Letters submitted may be used in print or in digital form in any publication or services offered by The San Diego Union-Tribune, LLC. I hope this message finds you in a good place. If you have any questions or suggestions, contact the clean elections campaign coordinator John Hartley at 619-299-8870 or hartley2k@aol.com April 2010 Hi Everyone - How are you? We are highlighting some special needs this month. We need more clean elections speakers and research volunteers! We would like to expand our outreach to groups and we need to research clean elections around the U.S. If you would like to help in either category, call John Hartley at 619-299-8870. Congratulations to Jeanne Brown and the League of Women Voters They created a great luncheon on clean elections in March! It was a great success. --- And don't forget Proposition 15, the statewide clean elections measure covering the Secretary of State position, which will be on the June ballot. If you would like to work on this important effort or want more information on it, call Jeanne Brown at 619-857-1807. Phone bank continues on Wednesday nights We continue to have a great group of phone bank volunteers calling clean elections supporters on Wednesday nights. If you would like to join us, we would love to have you. Just come in after 6pm to our 3609 Fourth Avenue phone bank in Hillcrest (just north of the intersection of Fourth Avenue and Brooks Avenue and on the East side of Fourth Avenue) If you have a cell phone, bring it! Call John Hartley at 619-299-8870 if you have any questions. Bill Moyers here in San Diego on Wednesday, April 21? Yes, Bill Moyers will be joining us on the Road to Clean Elections video at our general meeting at 7pm on Wednesday, April 21 at our phone bank location. (See location above) . If you have never seen Bill Moyers talk about clean elections, you will enjoy the message. Come join us. And join us too if you have questions or just want to know what we are doing to get clean elections in San Diego. Why do we need to raise money? People ask us why we need to raise money to get a clean elections measure on the ballot. The truth is that the establishment has raised the bar in terms of the number of signatures needed to qualify ballot measures. We will need to get 90,000 signatures of registered voters from the city of San Diego in order to qualify our clean elections measure. We are planning a robust volunteer effort to get signatures but we will also have to raise money in ensure that we qualify our initiative! So please dig in and send in a check, big or small. Where to send a contribution check All contributions count. Make your checks out to: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections and mail to: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections, P.O. Box 16066, San Diego, CA 92176. For more information, call John Hartley, at 619-299-8870. March 2010 Hi Everyone - Big news this month is the Clean Elections luncheon put on by the League of Women Voters on Wednesday, March 24 from 11:30 am to 1:30 pm. We encourage you to attend. Directions on how to reserve your place listed below. Phone bank continues on Wednesday nights We continue to call Clean Elections supporters every Wednesday night starting at 6pm from a conference room at 3609 Fourth Avenue in Hillcrest (just north of the intersection of Fourth Avenue and Brooks Avenue) We need volunteers. Come join us. If you have a question or need more information, call John Hartley at 619-299-8870. P.S. Bring your cell phone. General Meeting setup for Third Wednesday We will be hosting a general meeting, also at 3609 Fourth Avenue location, starting at 7pm on Wednesday, March 17. We will be showing “The Road to Clean Elections” narrated by Bill Moyers and answering any questions that folks might have. Come join us! Please keep those contributions to the clean elections campaign coming! We need to raise money to help us get our initiative on the ballot! Make checks out to: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections and mail to: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections, P.O. Box 16066, San Diego, CA 92176. For more information, call Neighborhoods for Clean Elections Coordinator, John Hartley, at 619-299-8870. League of Women Voters of San Diego - Clean Elections Luncheon “Do Special Interests Now Own Our Elections?” Speakers: Ric Bainter, Founding director of the New Politics program at the National Civic League and current National Common Cause Board member. Trent Lange, Chair of Californians for Fair Elections, the ballot committee that is leading the campaign for the California Fair Election Act on the June 2010 ballot, and board member of California Clean Money Campaign. Simon Mayeski, Board member of California Common Cause and watchdog on the San Diego Ethics Commission for Common Cause. Wednesday, March 24, 2010 from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Tom Ham’s Lighthouse Restaurant: located at 2150 Harbor Island Drive, 92101 Cost: $28 LWV members; $30 non-members Directions to Tom Ham’s: Harbor Dr. to the airport; turn left at Harbor Island Dr.; proceed two short blocks and veer right. Continue past hotels and marinas to the end of the island. Parking is free. Reservations must be received by Mar. 18, 2009 Mail check to LWVSD, 4901 Morena Blvd., # 104, San Diego 92117. Questions: 858-483-8696 February 2010 Hi Everyone - The Supreme Court’s recent decision allowing corporations to spend unlimited funds on political campaigns makes our clean elections campaign all the more important. See the article below by local Diego political consultant, Larry Remer. Phone bank moves to Wednesday nights We have moved our clean elections phone bank to Wednesday nights starting this Wednesday, February 3. The location is still the same, 3609 Fourth Avenue in Hillcrest and we start at 6pm. Volunteers are always appreciated. Come join us! For more information, contact John Hartley. We are targeting the 2012 general election Just a reminder that our intention is to put a clean elections ballot measure on the 2012 general elections ballot for the city of San Diego. There is also a statewide ballot measure on this June primary which if it passes, will provide for a pilot clean elections process for the statewide, Secretary of State office. For more information on this effort, give Common Cause organizer, Jeanne Brown, a call at 619-857-1807. Court Opens the Way for Influx of Corporate Big Money The US Supreme Court’s unprecedented tilt towards “Big Money” politics has made the need for Clean Elections more urgent than ever. In late January, the Supreme Court, by a 5-4 margin, overturned more than 100 years of precedent by ruling that restrictions on campaign spending by corporations and labor unions is an unconstitutional violation of the 1st amendment. The Court’s decision overturned key provisions of the McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Law as well as other federal limits on special interest spending. In essence, the Court lifted virtually all restrictions on campaigning by corporations and unions. Some observers believe that this will open the floodgates to hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign spending in the upcoming midterm elections. President Obama criticized the Court’s ruling during his State of the Union Address and public interest groups from across the country have joined in a rising chorus of outrage. The ruling has given new life to Clean Elections efforts across the country. With a political system that places virtually no limits or restrictions on special interest money, Clean Elections style ordinances offer the only hope for ordinary citizens to make their voices heard. Larry Remer, Political Consultant Thanks again for your clean elections donations Thanks again to those who have sent in checks for our campaign. We do need to raise money in order to successfully qualify and pass a clean elections initiative. If you have not done so, please consider making a contribution now. Make a check out to: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections and mail to: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections, P.O. Box 16066, San Diego, CA, 92176 John Hartley, Coordinator for Neighborhoods for Clean Elections 619-299-8870/hartley2k@aol.com January 2010 Clean Elections Campaign Hi Everyone - Happy New Year! 2010 will be a great year. You heard it from me! Our clean elections campaign will go into high gear with the new year! First, let me tell you about and invite you to some upcoming events. Upcoming Events This Saturday, January 9, from 11am to 1pm at the Mission Valley Branch Library located at 2123 Fenton Parkway in Mission Valley. This is a speakers/volunteers training session put on by Californians for Fair Elections. They are organizing support for the statewide clean elections ballot measure which will be on the June primary ballot. For more information, go to www.yesfairelections.org or call 310-397-0200. Sunday, January 17, 10:30am - 11:30am at the First Unitarian/Universalist Church, 4190 Front St in Hillcrest. This is a meeting of the Clean Elections Task Force of the church and everyone is invited to attend. We will be planning activities for the new year. Tuesday, January 19, 6:30pm at 3609 Fourth Avenue in Hillcrest. This is our first general meeting and everyone is invited to attend. We will also be sharing plans for the new year and, upon request, will show the video entitled, "Road to Clean Elections." Phone Bank Can you help us make calls to our supporters at our weekly phone bank? We will be phoning every Tuesday night from 6pm at 3609 Fourth Avenue. If you can help, come join us. For more information, contact John Hartley. This is a cell phone, phone bank so bring your cell phone. (we will have extras) Thanks to those who have donated! Thanks again to those of you who have donated to our clean elections campaign. We are an all volunteer group but we need to raise money to help qualify our Clean Elections Initiative for the 2012 ballot. More donations will be gratefully accepted. Please make checks out to: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections and mail to: Neighborhoods for Clean Elections, P.O. Box 16066, San Diego, CA 92176. Please include your phone number and e mail so we can contact you if we have any questions, and. by law, we need your occupation or profession and the name of your employer. If you are self-employed, we need the name of your entity and your position. If you are retired or a homemaker, please indicate that. Thanks again! Thanks again for your help and support for clean elections. We are on a long, tough journey to reform politics in the city of San Diego and to give our neighborhoods a Say at City Hall! If you have any questions or suggestions, please contact John Hartley. John Hartley, Coordinator of Neighborhoods for Clean Elections 619/299-8870 - hartley2k@aol.com Privacy Policy	Constituents like to see legislators who spend more time working on issues. Clean Elections has enabled me to do that. Maine Senate President Beth Edmonds
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Constituents like to see legislators who spend more time working on issues.

Clean Elections has enabled me to do that.

Constituents
like to see legislators
who spend
more time working on issues.

Clean Elections has enabled
me to do that.