Hartford - Chair of the Democratic Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives, Congressman John Larson was in town today to talk about the Fair Elections Now Act, a bill he has introduced in the House of Representatives to publicly fund congressional races. Congressman Larson joined in an informal chat with bloggers and the Speaker of the Connecticut House of Representatives, Representative Chris Donovan, and the President of Common Cause, former Congressman Bob Edgar. They talked about various sponsors of the bill, including Congresswoman Chellie Pingree. Ms. Pingree represents the First Congressional District in Maine. She is the former President of Common Cause, as well as the mother of Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, Representative Hannah Pingree.

Maine is one of the states that has public financing of state legislative races, and they talked about Representative Pingree’s campaign where she had the opportunity to go door to door speaking with voters instead of spending time on fundraising.

They spoke about United States Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano who had run for and been elected governor of Arizona under that state’s public financing of elections. Secretary Napolitano spoke about how the public financing laws in her state allowed her to have fundraisers in poorer neighborhoods, something that wasn’t feasible under the previous system.

Congressman Larson went on to reference the great quote of Louis Brandeis, “It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous State may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory”. Connecticut, Maine and Arizona have acted as laboratories to establish successful programs for the public funding of elections.

Speaker Donovan spoke about what has been learned here in Connecticut. He noted that we have gotten to this new system of funding elections via the old system. He acknowledged that there had been some resistance and that there have been a few bumps along the road. However, he considers the program to be a great success, particularly in terms of getting candidates better in touch with their local constituents.

Following the informal chat, Congressman Larson, Speaker Donovan, and former Congressman Edgar went to a formal press conference which included Congressman Chris Murphy and Congressman Joe Courtney. All the members of the Connecticut Congressional delegation have signed on to co-sponsor the Fair Elections Now Act.

Congressman Larson introduced Congressman Murphy and Congressman Courtney as examples of what grassroots networking is all about. Congressman Murphy talked about the importance of spending time talking to constituents instead of spending time dialing for dollars.

Will the Federal Congress learn from the experiments of publicly funded elections here in Connecticut, as well as in Maine and Arizona? Congressman Larson hopes to see congress act on this bill this year.