DES MOINES, Iowa - Today, in the wake of the massive amounts of campaign money spent in Iowa during the 2014 elections, a new organization called Iowa Pays the Price has been launched to educate Iowans on the need for meaningful reform to address the issue of money in politics and mobilize support for this important issue.
Iowa Pays the Price is a project of Issue One, a national, bipartisan organization dedicated to countering the overwhelming influence of big money on our political system so we can solve the real problems affecting people's lives.
The co-chairs of Iowa Pays the Price are:
"The enormous amounts of money spent in our Iowa elections affects us all," said IPP co-chair David Niffenegger. "Whether you are a Republican or a Democrat, from urban or rural Iowa, care about low taxes or low carbon emissions, we can all agree that our democracy should be controlled by voters and not by powerful special interests. The interests spending all this money on negative political ads do not represent the interests of the people of Iowa, and that needs to change."
According to an analysis by Maplight, a nonpartisan research organization that reveals money's influence on politics, a record $111,770,953 in federal campaign spending was spent in Iowa in 2014. This represented a 350% increase in campaign spending when compared to the $31,901,404 in federal campaign spending from the previous 2010 midterm election. In addition, for the first time in Iowa history a majority of the 2014 election spending was by outside groups rather than by candidates' campaigns.
"Last year's wall-to-wall attack ads, mail and nasty robo-calls was just too much," said IPP co-chair Bev Strayhall. "Iowa voters were tired of it all and many were so turned off they didn't bother voting. In Iowa we've always prided ourselves on grassroots organizing, door-knocking and civic participation, and we need to get back to our elections being driven by campaigns and volunteers rather than wealthy outside interests with hidden agendas."
Iowa Pays the Price supports increasing transparency in campaign contributions, accountability for those who break the rules, and increasing participation in our democracy. Over the coming months Iowa Pays the Price will build a bipartisan coalition in support of addressing the issue of money in politics, call on presidential candidates to offer solutions to fixing the current system, and release detailed studies showing specifically how outside groups spending large amounts of money trying to influence Iowa elections do not represent the interests of Iowa.
"I can't think of a better place to start a grassroots movement to reform money in politics than the state of Iowa," said IPP co-chair Brad Anderson. "Iowa is still a place where a small, dedicated group like ours can have a big impact, and it's our job to keep it that way. Our goal is to make our case that there is too much money in politics using unbiased facts and data, and then bring people on all sides of the political spectrum together to call for meaningful change."
Please visit
www.IowaPaysthePrice.org to view our initial launch video, learn more about our organization and to sign our petition.
